


undressed

by theviolonist



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Drug Addiction, Gen, Withdrawal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-10
Updated: 2012-07-10
Packaged: 2017-11-09 13:13:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/455832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theviolonist/pseuds/theviolonist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They come back to the bungalow to help Harry detox from heroin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	undressed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tamzinrose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamzinrose/gifts).



> Written for [ this prompt](http://1dangstmeme.livejournal.com/996.html?thread=78052&%20) on the Angst meme. 
> 
> I tried to make the depiction of OW as realistic as I could but probably got it wrong anyway, so I apologize for any inaccuracy. I don't mean any offense.
> 
> Now with [mix](http://theviolonist.livejournal.com/23624.html).

The tires screech on the gravel when Louis stops the car. He doesn't look next to him, can probably sense Liam's stiffness and his fingers curled tight around his thighs, his face, steeled in a stony expression. He looks behind him. Harry's eyes are closed, but he isn't sleeping, only pretending so that no one will talk to him. Zayn's fingering his cigarette pack on his lap – there's a smoking ban in the car, but he's been itching to smoke the whole drive, even sweating a little. Niall is looking outside, as though he could see through the tainted glass.  
  
Louis breathes in though his nose. The sound makes Harry flinch, but his eyes stay obstinately closed. There’s indistinct chatter coming from outside, oppressing.  
  
"At three," Louis says, startling himself. After so much silence, it sounds louder, too loud, like a yell.  
  
They count in their heads – they're used to it – and they all move together: at three, Zayn pushes Harry out of the car, probably a little rougher than necessary; Louis slips an arm around his waist and Harry's fingers curl around his hip, digging almost painfully in the flesh. Liam moves forward to shield them from the flashes, like they planned. They're all wearing sunglasses. "The boys aren’t signing autographs today," Paul says somewhere, remote. It would probably be inappropriate, anyway.  
  
"Paul and John are at the gate. That's where we're going," Liam says. The others nod without looking at him, curt nods they shouldn't have learned yet. They know the moves – they’ve rehearsed before coming, sitting cross-legged on Louis’s bed back at the hotel in London. Something can always go wrong. They’ve learned at least that in this mess.  
  
They're exhausted when they reach the gate. They all feel like Jesus, like they've dragged this fucking cross for miles, back broken and ears full of slurs and jeers (HarryHarryHarry _Harry_ tellussomething). But they aren't Jesus. There is no more death for them than there is a resurrection, no matter what everyone is hoping.  
  
(Liam put his foot down for the first time. "We're fixing ourselves," he said, square jaw and carefully blank eyes. "We'll see about the rest after.")  
  
They slip past the gate and into the garden. Harry's stepdad had the gate installed a few months back. Harry told them one night, at dinner. He said, "Robin's having a gate installed at the bungalow," and they all nodded and said  _yes, okay, great_ , but they had the same lump in their throat and there was a lull of silence in the conversation, something akin to grief. It was one of those nights when everything feels heavy and insurmountable. (It was before, though. Still.)  
  
They had the house prepared before coming, because it's something they can do now and despite what they always say, there are some things you do get used to. They start dragging the mattresses into the living-room pretty much as soon as they drop their bags, on tacit agreement. They aren't sure if it still feels right, but they need this.  
  
Harry stays in a corner, his arms wrapped around himself. At some point his fingers start twitching and he goes to get himself a glass of water. They all pretend not to watch him but they do, wary, stealing glances as though he could break at any moment. He probably could, Liam thinks. Zayn sighs – it makes Harry jump, and water sloshes on his hand. He curses, a loud, broken "Fuck!" that resounds in the silent house as he reaches for a towel. He dries himself jerkily, then turns towards them only to catch them all looking at him, rabbit-eyed.  
  
"Sorry," he says, eyes dropping to the floor, and they resume shuffling the mattresses around, mumbling that it's okay to keep up the appearances. They're too used it to let it go, even here, alone. Sometimes Liam thinks about all the promises he’s made, and he wants to laugh, because they’ve broken every single one of them.  
  
Zayn excuses himself to go smoke as soon as they're finished installing everything, and Niall and Louis flop down on the mattresses and turn the TV on, cuddled close but not as close as Louis and Harry would've been. Liam goes to unpack his bags. He doesn't know how long they'll stay here for, but he unpacks everything anyway, organizes the piles of neatly folded jumpers on the shelves almost manically. He thinks about unpacking the other's bags too, but it would probably be too much of a sign that something is wrong. They wouldn't like it.  
  
When he comes back to the living-room, Zayn is back inside, sitting with Niall on the couch. Liam can hear Harry and Louis in the kitchen, speaking in hushed tones. Louis sounds furious. Liam thinks about trying to get them to calm down, maybe fix it, but he's too tired. He needs at least a shower before dealing with another Harry and Louis fight.  
  
He sits on the couch and turns to Niall, who looks captivated by Spongebob. Liam can't decipher which part is pretense not to have to deal with everything else, and which part is genuine fascination with the little yellow man. He decides to give Niall the benefit of doubt. They all need to be cut a bit of slack, after all.  
  
"You know what food they got us?" he asks, because he needs to talk, he needs to at least  _pretend_  that this is normal or he'll explode.  
  
Niall tears his eyes away from the TV and half-smiles. Zayn isn’t looking at them, but Liam feels him stiffen by his side, muscles clenching where his thigh is pressed against Liam's. They all hate this new smile (Niall didn't use to smile like that. When he smiled, before, it was either his full-blown, teeth-baring, million dollar smile, or nothing at all), but for some reason Zayn is the one the transformation touched the most.  
  
Either Niall doesn't notice Zayn's reaction, or he chooses to ignore it. "Yeah," he says. "I looked. Mostly good stuff and a few vegetables. We got enough for a week or so, I think."  
  
Knowing Niall, it means that they have a month's worth of it. Paul still hasn't given up on his ridiculous project to "make them understand the magic of vegetables", but Liam doubts Niall will ever be convinced. If it were up to him (which it is, at least partly, since everyone must defer to him in all matters culinary), he'd probably let them rot at the bottom of the fridge and then put on an innocent smile and pretend to have forgotten about them when Paul asks him about it.  
  
"We can cook together, if you want," Niall says.  
  
The offer surprises Liam, but they don't have Harry to cook anymore – he stopped cooking a few months back, right at the time when he stopped eating. Even if he hadn't, they probably would be scared to let him alone in the kitchen – metal, knives, fire. It's strange, being permanently afraid of everything, but you get used to it fast enough.  
  
"Yeah – yeah, sure," Liam answers. Niall probably catches his surprise – he squeezes Liam's knee in reassurance. Zayn doesn't offer to help them. They didn't expect him to.  
  
They stay like that for half an hour more, lulled into a restless drowsiness by the mindless chatter of the TV, before Zayn stands up, unfolding his back slowly, like a panther. "I'm gonna go shower, lads," he says, and doesn't wait for their answer to disappear in the bathroom. Niall yawns.  
  
"He's right," he says, squeezing his eyes shut for a brief second. "We should get to cooking."  
  
Harry and Louis have disappeared outside a while ago, and Liam could tell Niall was tempted to follow them, to confront Harry once more, but he didn't. They heard strangled sobs at some point, strained to determine who it was, trying (and failing) to be discreet, but it stopped as quickly as it had started.  
  
They come back inside as Liam ties Niall's apron for him, fingers slipping. They're all twitchy and on edge, but it's nothing new, and they've sort of gotten used to it, even though it's one of those things you can never really get used to. When they're in a hotel, Zayn usually orders a massage. Liam goes to the pool if there is one and swims until his muscles ache the way he likes, from the exhaustion rather than from the stress. No one questions it – Paul makes the necessary arrangements in their schedule and the rest of the boys do their own things. It doesn't  _work_ , per se, but it's pretty much as good as they get.  
  
Harry and Louis sit on the stools on the other side of the kitchen table and Niall hands them two beers wordlessly, wiping his olive-oil-slick hands on his trousers instead of using the apron. Liam sighs; Niall shoots him a lightning-quick smile.  
  
"Thanks," Louis croaks as he takes hold of his beer, making them all jump. He was probably the one crying, Liam thinks absently. Louis takes a gulp of his beer, and Harry doesn't touch his, instead reaching for his glass of water. Niall makes it slide towards him on the table. Harry smiles, his lips twisting as though they were made of modeling clay and falling slack almost immediately.  
  
"What are you making?" Louis asks. His voice has always been sharp, and a little high-pitched, but these days you could almost cut yourself listening to him.  
  
"Nothing fancy," Niall answers. "I think just pasta with pesto, is that right, Lee-yum?" he says, stirring vigorously in the pan.  
  
"And salad," Liam adds.  
  
Niall makes a face. "And Liam doesn't want to hurt Paul’s feelings," he mocks, stressing the e of feelings for the effect.  
  
Louis nods. Liam notices his fingers digging into Harry's side, wonders if it hurts. If Harry likes it. Liam often wondered if Harry likes pain. Now, after what happened, he thinks he must.  
  
They watch the pasta cook in silence, Niall sometimes lifting his hips from where he is, leaning against the edge of the table, to stir. It's probably useless, but Liam doesn't tell him. He likes watching him move, feels like the brusque movement, as regular as a clock, is what keeps the four of them from sinking into the quicksands of immobility, dragging their bodies slightly upwards, giving them the essential push they need not to die. In many ways that they don't realize, Liam thinks, not for the first time, Niall saves them every day. He smiles in his direction, a little vaguely. Niall catches it and answers with ten times the intensity. It's a slow smile for him, taking over his face like a heavy wave, and Liam catalogues it without really thinking – rosy gums, teeth, braces, the sharp end of the enamel, a hint of tongue. His cheeks dimpling deeply around his mouth. Eyes crinkling. Liam stashes it all away for later, in case he should need it. When he looks over, almost by chance, Louis is doing the same thing.  
  
Zayn reappears suddenly when the pasta is finished cooking, and Liam can’t bring himself to say something, something like ‘stop running away’, because it wouldn’t be fair. Liam wants to run away too, most of the time. He wishes he were able to.  
  
“Help me set the table,” he says, handing Zayn the forks. Zayn nods.  
  
“Don’t forget the cheese,” Liam calls in direction of the kitchen, where Niall is draining the pasta.  
  
“Okay,” Louis calls back, strained. Liam and Zayn share a look, trying to make it as empty as possible, but of course, all the judgment and tiredness worms their way into their eyes. They pretend not to notice.  
  
“How many hours?” Zayn mouths.  
  
Liam shrugs. “Probably five or six,” he whispers. “Louis caught him this morning, before we left.”  
  
“You’re sure he didn’t bring any here?” Zayn asks.  
  
“I don’t know,” Liam answers, and he hates how his face must look right now, defeated and old. He tries not to think about it. “I don’t think so. We checked his bags.”  
  
“What are you talking about?” Louis says brightly as he walks into the living-room, holding a bowl full of pasta. “Get the sauce, Harry.”  
  
Harry hovers in place for a second, looking unsure whether or not to obey, but eventually he does, walking slowly back to the kitchen. Liam glances at Zayn who is avoiding Louis’s eyes, looking guilty. It’s a strange look on Zayn.  
  
It’s been a long time since they ate like that, the five of them sitting around a table with plates and cutlery, a proper meal. Liam tries to remember if they ever did, if it was ever just them five, not the other X-factor contestants, not Simon, no one. Maybe not. But then so much happened, and in so little time. He doesn’t remember it all, even though he tries almost desperately, and he doubts the others do either (but they don’t care as much, never did, and Liam can’t really blame them). Niall serves them healthy helpings that he drowns in sauce. He laughs when he splashes Louis’s cheek, but it feels off-key. It’s one of the most obvious signs of what’s happening – the slow destruction of Niall’s laughter – and it’s horrible to watch, ugly and cruel.  
  
Liam eats with blank, downcast eyes. He knows he’s waiting, but he tries to ignore it – waiting for someone to speak up, to lay it all on the table, right in their face, to burst, and it won’t be him, but someone will, Liam knows it. He holds back a sigh, relief or despair, when Niall sets violently sets down his fork. He didn’t think it would be him.  _Here we go,_  he thinks. Niall looks at him for a second, sharp blue eyes fixed in his like an arrow.  
  
“We can’t do this,” he says matter-of-factly.  
  
They all stop eating, all except for Louis. Harry’s eyes are big and blown, mangling his face – he’s never looked more like a hunted animal. The silence hangs above their heads, a Damocles's world that they’ve been aware of for so long that they’ve almost gotten used to it.  
  
Louis finally stops eating, dabs his mouth with his napkin. “Do what?” he asks pretend-cheerily, cold blue eyes daring Niall to say more.  
  
But they know each other like the back of their own hand, and sometimes that’s their biggest weakness – and Niall doesn’t back down, doesn’t look down and resume eating like anyone else probably would. Instead he says, “You can’t stop pretending nothing is going on, Louis,” and the crashing sound that they all hear is probably imaginary but it sounds so  _real_ , creeps under their skin and tugs at their weak heartstrings.  
  
They all know how Louis gets about this, and Liam can see from the corner of his eye that Niall is preparing himself for the impact. Another piece of his decaying heart falls soundlessly into the pits of his ribcage.  
  
Louis doesn’t disappoint (when does he ever). “And exactly what is going on, pray tell?” he sneers, eyebrows climbing to his hairline.  
  
Liam can’t keep himself from thinking, and it’s the only thing he does, really, compile all these precise, patient thoughts. He registers how Louis is standing, fists clenched next to the cutlery, asking for an answer that he doesn’t want to hear. Next to him, Harry is shaking, and he doesn’t want to be protected.  
  
“For fuck’s sake, Louis! There is something  _wrong_  with him, how hard can it be to acknowledge that?” Niall shouts, red-faced.  
  
Louis’s arm shoots out and winds itself around Harry’s shoulders, fingers curling at his nape. The way he’s so angry and yet so unfailingly faithful would almost be funny if it weren’t tragical. “There’s nothing  _wrong_  with him, you prick,” he hisses.  
  
The pasta must be getting cold, Liam thinks. Another thing to go to waste.  
  
“He’s an  _heroin addict_ , Louis,” Niall presses meanly, blindly. All this anger, it must be so hard to keep it inside. Sometimes Niall confuses Liam so much, with his happiness and his anger and the way his skin can’t lie, always reveals him.  
  
Liam watches Harry, and Harry’s hands are shaking too now, tiny shivers taking root at the tip of his fingers and shaking his whole hands violently, like electroshocks. He’s cursing under his breath, but he doesn’t make any sound, hair damp at his temples. Zayn has his eyes closed and a wrinkle barring his forehead. Niall and Louis are shouting, shouting, shouting, and Liam is silent.  
  
 _What a team_ , Liam thinks, and he starts collecting the plates, trying to avoid the curses flying over his head and the sight of Harry, trying not to let the anger pervade his body too, in vain. He feels like collateral damage.  
  
Niall is standing in front of Harry now, Liam remarks without meaning to; next to him, Zayn looks like he wants to leave but doesn’t, out of this faithfulness they never asked for but all got anyway, clinging to their skins and eating their insides.  
  
“Say  _something_ ,” Niall says. Louis tries to bar the way but Niall won’t let go, wants Harry to answer. “You owe it to us,” he says forcefully, “after all that you’ve put us through --”  
  
“ _Stop_ ,” Louis bites, and Niall finally stops, guilt and challenge mixing on his traits.  
  
Harry doesn’t say anything. He’s breathing heavily, holding his stomach. Louis looks panicked under the anger. Liam checks his phone – it’s been twenty hours; probably the withdrawal kicking in. (He calls back all the things he read on the Internet and filed away – he must not have been dosing too heavily, it’s at least that. Intravenous or snorted? He'll have to ask him that. Maybe both.)  
  
The table is cleared, and Liam wonders if the others remarked, if they’re still hungry. Reheated pasta is better, anyway – and maybe someone other than Liam will eat this fucking salad.  
  
“Guys,” he says, level voice. They don’t stop arguing. Harry’s arms are tight around his stomach.  
  
“Guys,” he repeats, louder. They turn towards him. They want him to be the leader, he sees in their eyes, and he can’t help the anger that hits his sternum, hard – because it’s nothing but cowardice, fucking cowardice because they don’t know what to do. He has no compassion left – they drained him, and he hates that he still feels guilty, despite everything.  
  
Harry looks up at him,  _help me_  ringing clear in his eyes.  
  
“Withdrawal’s kicking in,” he says simply, and it suddenly hits him how unprepared they are for this, how completely helpless and  _young_. They shouldn’t have to do this. (Why did Harry start? Why didn’t he think of them? Why does he put them through this? Niall isn’t wrong.)  
  
Louis is panicked. “What do we do?” he asks frantically, standing up and moving aimlessly, restless.  
  
Liam bites back the  _I don’t know_. He should say something, but his mouth is running empty, words taken away by the fear. Next to Louis, Harry looks like he's going to throw up.  
  
Zayn surprises them all when he talks, hoarse voice croaking out, “Does the bungalow have a bath or a jacuzzi or something?”  
  
(They’ll get to Zayn’s addiction after that, Liam promises to himself, ever the savior, until they’re completely clean, scrubbed raw of all these fucking cravings that crawl into the chasms between them, eating the love away. Liam will be damned if he lets it happen once more.)  
  
Harry nods. There’s hope in his eyes, and they’re lucky, in a way, they’re lucky and they’re rich and Harry won’t die from this, it’s too early, just a foolish game, the appeal of newness and danger. But luck – luck isn’t that. Luck isn’t looking at Harry and thinking,  _what happened, where did it go wrong, why didn’t we notice_ , and remembering to all the lies and the lurid nights with Harry smelling of sweat and euphoria. It can’t be.  
  
“And there’s a pharmacy near, right?” Zayn continues. His eyes are unfocused like they usually never are, never resting on one thing for more than a few seconds.  
  
Harry nods again. Liam wants to back Niall up and ask him to fucking talk already, stop pretending he’s mute and innocent when he's neither. Louis is standing next to him, a hand heavy on his neck. Harry looks like he wants to shake it off.  _Little thing_ , Liam thinks with something almost like contempt.  
  
Zayn doesn’t say anything more, and silence falls back on them like a stone, the walls of the house crumbling down to bury them. Maybe it would be better, Liam thinks – silent at last, and at peace. But there’s no time for dreams (no time for anything, these days, but it looked like a choice).  
  
Niall has apparently decided to stop accusing Harry, but Liam isn’t sure the alternative is better – he looks exhausted, limbs heavy, arms hanging limp at his sides. He’s brought Harry’s laptop at the table, but no one is opening it, afraid of what it will reveal.  
  
“Fuck’s sake,” Louis bursts, choked-off, fake bravado as always, and he presses the button.  
  
Harry’s screensaver is like a punch to the stomach – a picture of them, taken with his hipster camera when he still used it, the five of them here the year before, Louis’ arm slung easily across Harry’s shoulders, a smile peeking at the corner of Zayn’s mouth, Liam looking over them, unadulterated fondness (he doesn’t say ‘love’, not any more – love is something that hurts, and it didn’t then) shining in his eyes, and Niall leaning against his side, teeth blindingly white. Harry probably used the tripod to take it, so they could be in it, and Liam tries to remember the warmth that spread in his body but comes up blank. It hurts, a bit. The others are looking too, no one moving.  _One Direction, ladies and gents_ , Louis would probably say if everything was different, if this wasn’t happening to them but to some other fallen boyband –  _One Direction, touching rock bottom._  
  
Niall pulls the laptop towards himself and angles him so that Liam and Zayn can see. ‘Heroin withdrawal’, he types into Google too quickly, as though the words burned his fingertips. His fingers on the keys make a deafening sound.  
  
‘Help,’ Liam adds after ‘withdrawal’.  
  
“Why did you ask if there was a bath?” Louis asks Zayn when the silence gets too much, and Harry is breaking down silently next to him, just hurting, hurting, hurting and they aren’t doing anything and he’s going crazy, that much is obvious. Of course Louis wants answers.  
  
“It’ll help with the muscle ache,” Zayn says. His fingers are twitching for a cigarette, but apparently he’s chosen this moment to be politically correct. Liam can’t bring himself to care, has trouble caring, at least the way Louis cares, sharp and frantic and panicked.  
  
“How’d you know that?” Louis asks, voice tight. Zayn senses the aggression, but doesn’t respond to it. Liam is thankful. They’re all on edge, but they don’t need this.  
  
“Friend,” he mumbles. Louis doesn’t care, anyway.  
  
“You should lie down,” he says to Harry, and Harry doesn’t even protest, shuffles to the mattresses in the middle of the room. It’s ironic how he’s almost absent, despite being the center of all their little drama. Transparent Harry. That’s a first.  
  
Liam turns his attention back to the screen, but suddenly he can’t read. He feels filled to the brim with words, tiny little block characters, black and vicious – feels like he’d vomit them all if he opened his mouth, ‘withdrawal’ and ‘rehab’ and ‘cold turkey’, ‘xanax’, ‘die’, ‘addict’, they’re so ugly, these words...  
  
He wants to take to his heels and run; the feeling aches at the base of his skull,  _run away, still time_ , but really this option expired the moment he hugged them on the X-Factor stage, tight happiness bubbling in his chest and ‘who are they’ ringing at the back of his mind. He wishes he could still leave.  
  
“What’s going on?” Niall asks.  
  
“Nothing,” Liam answers. “Keep reading.” He can’t hide this, but he can still lie a little, if they’ll let him. Niall hums.  _Okay_ , the wrinkles around his mouth say, but they also say,  _later_.  
  
“What do we do?” Louis asks. “Fuck, what do we do now?”  
  
Liam looks at him, head empty.  
  
(Maybe this was a mistake, maybe it was too late, maybe the other option was better, maybe they shouldn’t have listened to management, for once, maybe they’re going to fuck this up, what do they know about this shit anyway, what do they know, they’re just kids, maybe they should’ve checked Harry into rehab instead of trying to be heroes...)  
  
“We try,” he says. He regrets the words as soon as they’re out – they sound wrong, crooked and inconsequential, like a cheesy line out of a bad movie. “Go run him a bath,” he tries again.  
  
“I -” Louis starts, looking like he’s going to object, but he shakes his head and says, “okay. Yeah, okay.” He turns back to Harry. “You gonna be okay, Haz?”  
  
Harry doesn’t do anything that could indicate that he’s heard, but Louis pretends he did, smiles weakly and leaves the room. Liam takes half a second to wonder what monsters are roaming inside Harry’s head, what horrible images are flashing behind his closed eyelids.  
  
“We should make a list,” Zayn says.  
  
“Hm?” Liam asks at the same time as Niall agrees with a “Yeah.”  
  
“A list. Of things we’ll need,” Zayn says, gesturing at the screen.  
  
Liam feels so exhausted, like the weight of five lives is pressing against the bones of his shoulders. “Yeah,” he sighs, and tries to stuff it all back inside, the pain and the disappointment and the relentless exhaustion. “Okay, let’s do that.”  
  
Harry whines behind them, but they don’t turn around, afraid to break if they do.  
  
They do make a list, names of medication that pile in thick black ink on the paper, Valium, Imodium, L-Tyrosine. They feel like a stain in Liam's brain – he thinks about how he'll never get rid of them, and the anger collects on his bones like moss, dark greenish smudges. But it's Liam's anger that makes them work (they try to ignore it, but it's the truth, it's the truth, the line between love and anger is such a thin one).  
  
They mandate Niall to go pick them at the drugstore in town. Opening the door lets in a burst of noise, distant screeches and flashes, and Niall recoils for a second, his whole body curling backwards as though he wanted to come running back to them. He takes a deep breath, fingers clenching around the doorknob.  
  
"I'll be right back," he says without looking at them, voice level.  
  
Liam feels like they're throwing him into the lions' den. They'd make a poor five-headed Christ, he thinks; their feeble bodies and fickle minds couldn't bear what one man has braved before them. He hates himself for thinking in Christic figures – Jesus Payne, isn't that what they were saying?  
  
The exhaustion falls back on them like a hammer, pulverizing their fragile spines. Harry sags back into the mattresses, and Louis scrambles to him on his knees, curling an arm around his calves to draw him back against his chest. Liam looks at them, the tangled limbs and the fluttering, half-shut eyelids.  
  
"I'm going to take a nap," he says to Zayn. "Get Harry in the bath, yeah?"  
  
Zayn's fingers are twitching again, and Liam holds back the urge to slap them to make it stop. Zayn looks terrified for a second, ready to speak out against the unfairness of being left alone with this unholy mess (the quivering bodies and the purpling bruises, the frantic murmurs), but he doesn't. "Yeah," he says instead. "I'll try."  
  
"Do it," Liam says, and leaves. He doesn't care where he'll sleep. He just doesn't want to be near Harry, half-falling into the tight hollow his body has created in the mattresses. Enough of this – enough, enough, enough.  
  
He ends up not sleeping. He can't tell if it's because of the silence, the first real silence he's heard in forever (no fans; they must have gone home by now, and for a flickering second he feels guilty for not missing their high-pitched screams), or because of the way he can  _feel_  the others in the adjacent room, their movements slurred and slow. He doesn't really care – has burned out all the energy he could've had to. He got used to lack of sleep and insomnia on tour, knows the right amounts of coffee and orange juice with a side dish of pills, of course. No one told him about this, how much medication he'd have to take once he was famous. He figured, but he also figured he could avoid taking them. He figured a lot of things that make him laugh now, bitter and sour.  
  
He walks to the terrace but even the open air feels like dust in his lungs. He squeezes his eyes shut when Harry's broken moans ( _no, no, stop)_  reach his ears, and he has to physically hold himself back not to spring back inside and tell Zayn to put him in the fucking water. Fuck Harry. He's the one who got them in this mess, he could at least be cooperative.  
  
He wants a minute to himself, to let the tension bleed out of his bones and the tiredness settle deep against his ribcage, the thing that most resembles calm these days. But he's Liam Payne, and it would be known if he got the things he wants (he's being unfair, he tells himself, but can't bring himself to think differently). Louis slides through the door, on the wrong side of graceful.  
  
He hands Liam a beer. Liam takes it with a nod, doesn't say thank you. He's tired. He never expected that loving them would take so much out of him.  
  
Louis moves the gravel aimlessly with his foot. "'S'like a zoo, innit," he asks, voice thin and strung-out.  
  
"What," Liam says, dully. He's done reading between the lines. He hears a door slamming somewhere in the bungalow, probably Niall, back with – whatever it is he had to get. Liam feels kind of bad for not doing it himself, but he isn't entirely sure he wouldn't just have crumbled in front of the pharmacy.  
  
"I mean," Louis gestures vaguely, like he already regrets saying anything, and Liam feels meanly satisfied, "you know. The gate. Can't leave or you'll get eaten."  
  
He crushes the gravel under his foot, and it makes a horrible sound, like nails on a chalkboard.  
  
"Don't you think you're a little dramatic," Liam says, still no inflection at all. He could've indulged him, could've said,  _so we're not the lions_  (and they aren't, they definitely aren't), but he doesn't want to.  
  
"You know me," Louis says, taking a swig of his beer and tipping his head back, a sorry smile quirking at the corner of his lip, "always the joker."  
  
"Yeah," Liam says blandly, trying to muster up the energy (can you can call it bravery if it's the only thing you can do?) to come back inside.  
  
Louis lets out a tiny, bitter chuckle, and grabs his elbow to drag him inside. Liam wonders when he started to be thankful for things like that.  
  
Zayn is sitting on the arm of the couch, his face in his hands. He looks like he might be crying, and Liam can't blame him, and Louis looks like the sight rips him open and there's so much Liam can stand but this, this –  
  
"You okay, mate?" Louis says, voice tinged with creeping hysteria.  
  
Zayn's head whips towards them, and if he wipes his eyes with the sleeve of his T-shirt, well, that's not theirs to judge.  
  
"Yeah," he says, but his voice breaks. He coughs. "Yeah," he repeats. "Harry is – I sent Niall."  
  
Liam doesn't even need to close his eyes to imagine it, and he guesses Louis doesn't either – Harry's body, naked and quivering and so fucking small (they've all seen how the flesh melted out of him, didn't say anything for a while, when they could still pretend it would all go away), and him falling into the water, sobbing quietly, shaking, shaking so bad, saying no with kittenish cries, and Niall there with him, strong-faced and tight-mouthed, braver than they'll ever be.  
  
"He got the stuff," Zayn says, and gestures vaguely to the floor, where several (too much) meds are strewn, obscure labels with names in -in, small and ominous.  
  
"Do we have to sort through them?" Liam asks, and thinks,  _please say no_.  
  
Zayn looks at him – they've known each other long enough that he must know what Liam's feeling (and that's still weird, lying being taken away from him too, his last barrier) – and nods. "Yeah," he says. "I think we need to give him the vitamins first, but -"  _but I don't want to mess this up_. None of them do.  
  
Liam takes a look at the meds, suddenly frozen, and wonders what kind of vicious insanity made them think that they could deal with this on their own, and why everyone let them. Even Anne... they should've known better, he thinks. It's a little bit reassuring to know that he can still blame all this one someone else.  
  
Niall comes back with Harry, shaking and frail in a towel. He's never seemed so small, and so scared; Liam can't even hate him anymore for everything he's doing to them. Niall directs him to the couch – Harry walks as though he were blind. If he were an actor, Liam would say he's trying too hard.  
  
"He needs to eat," Zayn says, his voice firmer than Liam would have imagined it to be. "Is there pasta left?"  
  
Niall nods. "Yeah, in the fridge," he says. "I'll reheat it."  
  
He looks wary to leave Harry, to remove the hand he's got curled on his shoulder, but Zayn steps beside him, behind Harry, taking his place. Niall nods shortly.  
  
"I'm not hungry." Harry's voice doesn't sound like itself, as though the few hours spent without talking had changed it irrevocably, and it's sharp and full of holes.  
  
"It doesn't matter," Liam says before he can help himself. The others turn to him with rigid backs. Louis, ever the protector, looks ready to fight. "You have to."  
  
Harry holds his stare for a few seconds, but his eyes are pale and circled purple. He bows his head, mumbles something against Zayn's forearm. Liam doesn't hear, and he doesn't ask.  
  
The pasta gets reheated and loaded with vitamins, and they all seat around the table to watch Harry eat. It's probably cruel, and they wouldn't do that if he weren't guilty, if all this weren't his fault – but he's the one who put them all there, no heartache necessary, all teenage recklessness and stupidity. Liam grits his teeth and concentrates on the mechanical bobbling of Harry's Adam's apple.  _Faster_ , he wants to say, but he doesn't. He pretends not to see Louis's hand at the small of Harry's back, too. Enough hurt for today. Minimize the damage, he tells himself, otherwise he won't last two days.  
  
"I bought bananas," Niall says. If this were any other occasion, they would probably burst out laughing at the random comment, but the situation is what it is. They wait for more.  
  
"Apparently it's a, uh, a good source for potassium. And there's something called RLS, Restless Leg Syndrome, it's probably," he looks at Harry from the corner of his eye, "it's probably gonna happen. So. Be prepared, I guess."  
  
Louis looks like he wants to say something, probably something hurtful and mean, but he doesn't. Maybe it's Harry holding him back. Who knows how these two communicate. Liam stopped keeping track long ago.  
  
Harry ends up vomiting all the pasta, but they try again and again until he keeps it down. They follow the instructions to the letter. It feels unsure and precarious, following a distant recipe on the Internet that some random guy invented, but they don't have a better choice. Liam wonders if it's really friendship if they're willing to endanger Harry's life to keep him here instead of sending him to the hospital. He's too deep in now, anyway.  
  
The first four days are an endless routine of Valium, nightmares and food. They try to make Harry eat; sometimes he does, sometimes he refuses to and they have to force him, force the food and the vitamins down his throat, half-closing their eyes not to see his tear-swelled eyes gazing up at them, dazed and furious.  
  
The first night they all crowd on the mattresses with Harry at the center, resting against Louis's chest, breathing heavy. He's agitated; his hands are twitching nervously and he looks like he wants to talk but he doesn't say anything, biting his lips. He tries to wrench out of Louis's grasp once or twice, but one of the other boys always holds him back, grabs his ankle or his wrist. Human prison, Liam thinks, and berates himself for the melodrama.  
  
Zayn is the first to fall asleep. It's nothing, really, just his head on Niall's shoulder and his breathing evening out, but Liam realizes that they've been waiting for Harry to go to sleep for hours now, watching him out of the corner of their eyes and pretending to make conversation. Maybe he'll sleep better if they show him the way, who knows.  
  
But Harry doesn't sleep. No, Harry spasms and cries and tries to hurt Louis when he starts drowsing, tries to wriggle from his embrace to go find his heroin. He must have some still, Liam thinks, half-asleep. He can't shake himself awake. He hasn't slept for three days – he's so bloody tired.  
  
Louis doesn't close his eyes after that, and when the light of dawn wakes them up hours later, pale and red, Harry's blabbering in his collarbone.  
  
"I'm so fucking  _tired_ , do you have any idea? Do you have any fucking idea how much it fucking  _aches_ , no you don't, you don't, you're such a sheltered prick, let me  _sleep_ , let me take some, I swear, I'll stop, I'll stop, I'll do anything you want, I'll suck your cock, you look like you need it, Louis, Louis, Lou, love, let me..."  
  
Louis isn't saying anything. He isn't even looking at Harry; his jaw is clenched so hard that if Liam didn't know him like he does (too much), he'd swear it was on the verge of breaking.  
  
"You okay?" he asks, and regrets it as soon as the words are out of his mouth. Fucking automatism. Daddy Direction, yeah. Right.  
  
"What do you  _think_ ," Louis snaps, and pushes Harry out of his arms. It's like a small earthquake for Liam – something he's never seen Louis do before, never, even when Louis and Harry were so mad at each other that it set everyone on edge, as it always does.  
  
"I can't deal with this," Louis says, running a frantic hand through his hair and standing up, wobbling a little on his knees. He hasn't slept, Liam realizes. He wonders if any of them will sleep during this, and after, if there is an after. "I'll get breakfast, I'll be back."  
  
 _Of course you'll be back_ , Liam doesn't say. Louis doesn't bring breakfast back for anyone else, just eats there in the kitchenette, without turning the lights on. Liam lends an ear, because he's been trained (like a dog, he can't help but thinking, but that's ungrateful) to always know what they do, watch that they don't make mistakes (he's the one who can tell which things are mistakes and which aren't. Deciding with dice probably wouldn't be much different).  
  
Harry is slumped against his chest, his face smushed against Liam's chest. He must be glaring, Liam thinks, even though he can't see him; he hasn't stopped until yesterday.  
  
He holds still until Louis comes back, unsure of what to do, cramps stiffening his arms and thighs. Harry's breathing is irregular and damp through his T-shirt. Liam's fists are curled at his sides. If you asked him, he probably wouldn't tell you it's because he's afraid he'd push Harry away if he didn't pay attention, out of disgust or out of despair, who knows.  
  
Louis maneuvers Harry back down on the mattressess and lays his head on his chest, near his throat. He looks murderous, and Harry doesn't react, lets himself be carried around like a rag doll, limbs heavy and slow.  
  
There's a quick nap that feels like respite around eleven, but it takes Harry half an hour to start shaking and Louis a handful of seconds to understand that it's nightmares. If they thought waking him up would prevent the screaming, they were wrong.  
  
They're all exhausted by noon; they move sluggishly around the house, taking turns to stay near Harry, though Louis is the one who's there most of the time. At some point he complains of a headache and goes out for a fag, and Liam pretends he doesn't see him through the revolving doors, kneeling on the gravel and crying.  
  
The day doesn't feel like a day as much as it does a long wait. They try to talk but the words stay stuck in their throats, so they don't. They need to save all their efforts for this – they'll need them, that's for sure. Niall makes food. Zayn reads on the Internet, scribbles down notes. Liam does things he doesn't remember, useful things, and then goes back to do them again until he discovers he's already done them. It's like a vicious circle, over and over again until your knees give.  
  
The next night isn't quieter. There's more shaking and more nightmares, more Harry begging and threatening and slurring. Sometimes he's lucid for a while but he's bitter, too. He doesn't talk much. He certainly doesn't say thank you. Liam would say he understands, but he doesn't – he doesn't get why someone would put themselves in such a state; it's just something that's strange to him, alien and stupid, a child's mistake.  
  
Louis remains faithful and only crumbles out their view, which Liam, selfishly, is graceful for. He wonders how much longer it's going to take before it's too much and he crumbles down, but Louis's strong, always been – stronger than he seems. He's always hated it when people treated him like a girl because of his face, his body. He's a man.  
  
Harry manages to escape from Zayn's embrace at some point and starts limping around the house, foraging in his bags. They catch him quickly enough, but he bites Zayn in the collarbone, viciously, his eyes furious. Zayn looks at him, stricken. Liam can see through his eyes – he doesn't recognize him. Liam isn't not sure he would recognize any of them, were they all put in front of a mirror.  
  
It's three a.m. when a noise wakes Liam up from his sleep – always light, now, and the blinking green numbers are enough to wake him up most of the time. He raises his head. He should be afraid, probably.  
  
"Who's there?" he whispers. It's probably Louis getting a glass of water or something.  
  
Niall's face comes into view, his forehead crinkled. Liam has to bite his lip to hold back from rising a hand and smoothing the skin.  
  
"Shh," Niall says.  
  
"What are you doing?"  
  
"Getting rid of it," Niall says, sounding determined.  
  
Liam doesn't get it for a second, but then he sees the little bag of white powder in Niall's hand. "Where did you find that?"  
  
"Harry's bag," Niall shrugs.  
  
"Didn't we check it before we left?"  
  
"Not well enough," Niall says.  
  
They didn't do anything well enough before they left. Fuck. They shouldn't have let this go that far – Harry's fucking crazy, they should've known. Ignoring it – yeah, that was so convenient.  
  
"Do you need help?" Liam whispers.  
  
Niall hesitates. "No, I'm okay," he says eventually. "Go back to sleep."  
  
Liam doesn't insist. He falls asleep to the sound of Niall padding into the room, the rustling of clothes and Harry's heinous murmurs, muffled in the skin of Louis's collarbone.  
  
Harry is throwing up when Liam wakes up again. It's never a nice thing to wake up too, and Liam thinks the saddest thing about it is that he's starting to get used to it. His bones feel heavy, his heart feels loud, his mouth tastes sour; nothing's out of the ordinary.

  
He wrenches a smile from somewhere – he doesn't really know where, to be honest, but at least he still has it – to give to Niall, because he deserves it, and stretches. His back cracks. Harry takes a deep, ragged breath. Liam doesn't look his way.  
  
That's one more thing he hates about this, how closed-off it feels, how small, how claustrophobic – the five of them in this tiny bungalow, barely enough space for them to sit without bumping knees, always falling into each other. Liam would say it's unhealthy, but he feels like it would a little hypocritical – he didn't have a problem with it as long it was just the five of them being in love in this special way they have, the tight-knitted friendship that he said so many good things about. He never would've thought that friendship could turn against you, but then again, he learned a lot of things these last few months. If you'd told him when he was in the car driving him to the X-factor audition that in two years he would be trapped in a house with his five best friends trying to detox one of them, he probably would've laughed at your face.  
  
He didn't think he'd get tired so soon, either. It's draining, trying not to care, and caring so much.  
  
He pours himself a glass of orange juice and reclines against the fridge. The cold steel feels good against his back, and he takes a couple of deep breaths. He wonders what time it is. They wake up late, these days, but the days aren't shorter. They sleep when Harry sleeps – it's like a reprieve, and by now they've gotten pretty good at it, falling asleep as soon as Harry's out, closing their eyes and falling into this dreamless darkness. It doesn't feel restful as much as necessary.  
  
He opens his eyes when he feels Zayn approaching. He comes closer than he would've before, dancing his fingertips against Liam's hip. Liam doesn't know whether to be thankful or to hate it. There's too much closeness, but he kind of feels like being without them would drain the air out of his lungs and leave him gasping and empty.  
  
"We should be able to stop the Valium tomorrow," Zayn says, not quite whispering. Everything started to feel quiet on the second day. Now they don't try to fight it anymore.  
  
"Yeah? You think it'll work?"  
  
"I don't know. I feel like maybe we should wait but I don't want to create another dependency, you know?" He smiles, like, _we've got enough on our plate as it is_ , and it's true, a little too true. "I just don't know if I can survive another sleepless night, to be honest."  
  
"Yeah, I know what you mean."  
  
Zayn smiles weakly at him. There's a beat of silence that feels heavy. They kind of want to fall into each other's arms, but their skin is so raw it's red and they feel like a simple friction would set them afire; they hurt enough already.  
  
"We should go grocery shopping," Zayn says eventually.  
  
Liam trails a finger along Zayn's jawline. "Yeah. There's – tomorrow morning is going to be hard, you know that, right?"  
  
Zayn leans a little into it, eyelids fluttering. "Yeah," he sighs. "Did you tell Louis?"  
  
"Not yet."  
  
Zayn sighs again, breathes in deep, and takes a step back. Liam suddenly feels cold. "Do it. You'll feel better."  
  
Saying  _I don't think I will_  wouldn't help anything, so Liam doesn't say it, but it weighs heavy on his chest, rising like a vague nausea.  
  
He goes to find Louis after he finishes his breakfast, leaving his half-eaten toast on the table. Maybe he'll come back to it later. He should eat more – they all should.  
  
He drags him away from Harry who's curled in the couch, looking into nothingness. Liam always tells him to do things, exercise, maybe read, but Harry says he can't. He can't do anything, he says, so he just sits there and watches the wall. Sometimes he wipes the sweat from his forehead, and sometimes his limbs jerk without him wanting to. Sometimes he throws up. Sometimes his head falls on his knees and he breathes deeply, irregularly. Liam doesn't understand how Louis can stay next to him all day and watch him suffer, but those two have always been beyond him, anyway.  
  
"What's going on?" Louis says, wringing a dishtowel in his hands. "Is there something wrong?"  
  
Liam takes a moment to look at him, really  _look_ ; he's probably the one who's changed the most since they've been here. It hasn't been long, a week at most, but his eyes are dark and sunken and he's always jittery, as though he was trying to make up for Harry's moveless state, legs restless, always blinking.  
  
"No," Liam says. He isn't really sure what qualifies as 'wrong' anymore, but it's the safer answer. Liam's always been a safer kind of guy.  
  
"What's it, then?" he asks, looking to his right, then to his left, a little frantically. "God, I need a smoke."  
  
"You don't smoke."  
  
Louis sighs, crossing his arms on his chest. His shoulders sag. "I know."  
  
Liam laughs a little at that, then sobers up. "Tomorrow morning's gonna be a little hard, Tommo," he says. It's a clumsy way to say it, but it's the best he's got.  
  
Louis laughs, a quick, bitter burst. "I'm sure it won't feel unfamiliar," he says.  
  
Liam doesn't answer. "We've got to start him on L-tyrosine."  
  
Louis takes a deep breath, ragged, closes his eyes for a fraction of a second. "Right," he says, and rubs at his eyes. "Which one is it, already?"  
  
Zayn and Liam did a schedule yesterday night, and Liam's got the words burned into his brain now. He feels like a walking encyclopedia of death. It's not a good feeling. "It'll help with the malaise, you know, like we talked about?"  
  
They talked, one night. Harry was sleeping, and they sat in a circle that felt like a square, talking quietly, in low voices.  _Here's what we're gonna do_ , they said, and now they try to stick to it, bear their crosses. Liam would say it's working, if this kind of thing ever just worked.  
  
"Yeah, yeah, okay. So, malaise, right?"  
  
"You know the drill. He's gonna feel queasy, um, muscle ache, and maybe diarrhea, runny nose, and -"  
  
"Nothing new, then?" Louis asks quickly, like he can't bear the listing of Harry's symptoms. Liam kind of understands.  
  
"I guess not," Liam shrugs.  
  
It's the moment Niall chooses to step out of the living room and onto the terrace. He doesn't notice them right away, leans forward, hands on his knees as though he's going to throw up too, and breathes heavily, back broken. He staggers back when he sees them; he would've jumped before, but surprise isn't what it used to be.  
  
"Oh, hi guys," he says, waving a little awkwardly and walking towards them, sticking his hands deep in his pockets, "didn't see you there."  
  
"Yeah," Louis says, and he waves a vague hand, as though he were holding a cigarette out to say 'I'm smoking.' Niall nods.  
  
"Zayn's inside?" Louis asks belatedly, catching up on himself.  
  
"Yeah, he's looking after him."  
  
"Good."  
  
More silence. Niall looks restless too, picking at the lint in his pockets.  
  
"There's grocery shopping to do," Liam says, because he can't think of anything else.  
  
"I'll go," Niall says, his head jerking up.  
  
"No, you – you went last time, right? I should go," Louis protests. He looks so tired. He still doesn't sleep as much as them. Liam wonders how much he  _has_  slept in the last week.  
  
"I'm not sure that's a good idea, mate," Niall says, looking half concerned and half uncaring. Liam can relate.  
  
"Why?" Louis asks flatly.  
  
"… you know."  
  
"I don't know. I asked, didn't I? Tell me," Louis asks, a little insistent.  
  
That's Louis with raw nerves, ready to get angry, ready to let the tension bleed into anger. Liam would do him the favor and let him shout like he needs to, but he can't. They have to stick together, despite everything, and Louis is a little too good at prodding in the right places when he's angry, poking at the bruises that hurt the most.  
  
Niall gets it, or maybe he's just too tired to fight; he doesn't raise to the bait, only shakes his head, like  _calm down, mate_. He doesn't actually say it, and he's right not to – if anything, it probably would only make Louis angrier.  
  
"I'll go," Louis says determinedly. Liam doesn't know if he's this passionate about it only for the sake of winning the argument or because he wants to get out of here – both are possible -, but if it's the second one, he'll have to warn Louis that getting out to get assaulted by the paparazzi and buy sleeping pills that could knock down a horse for your best friend is no one's idea of a wind-down.  
  
"Yeah," Niall says, vaguely, like he's thinking the same thing as Liam, that he'll have all the time later to convince him otherwise.  
  
"I should head back inside," Louis says. "Was there anything you wanted to tell me, Liam?" he asks.  
  
Liam doesn't want to let him go back inside, back to drowning into Harry's radioactive presence, but he doesn't actually have anything more to say, so he nods. "Yeah, no, you can -," he says kind of weakly, gesturing at the glass panelling.  
  
Niall grabs Louis's wrist as he moves to get back inside, head bowed. "Wait," he says, voice a little rough. "Stay a little more, yeah?" he says, trying for cheery and missing by a landslide. Gratefulness floods Liam's chest so suddenly it nearly knocks him off his feet. "It's been forever since we've chatted," Niall adds, half-smiling.  
  
Louis nods, ignoring the obvious lie. Liam's choking a little inside.  
  
"Don't you have a fag, though?" Louis asks, something like his old mischief sparkling dully in the cold blue of his eyes.  
  
Niall laughs, short and loud. "You don't even smoke," he says.  
  
Louis pouts jokingly, frowning. "Liam said that too. You two are so narrow-minded," he says, something like a smile twisting the corner of his mouth.  
  
It feels like a cold spring; it's a first step.  
  
Niall does have a fag, and he gives it to Louis, sneaking an apologetic glance at Liam over Louis's shoulder. Liam frowns a little – more addiction is really the last thing they need right now –, but he understands. Louis probably needs this. He looks so strung-out that Liam worries he might snap at any moment, like a used violin string.  
  
Louis inhales hurriedly, and coughs through his first two drags, but settles into the rhythm of smoking quickly enough. He's more reckless than he would have been two weeks ago, inhaling the smoke deep into his throat before letting it float out. He tries to blow smoke rings and fails. Niall laughs at him.  
  
They don't chat that much, in the end, but it's probably best. Liam doesn't see what they would talk about, to be honest; he's having trouble seeing farther than the end of the day, and everything is clinical and squalid, drugs, shopping, more drugs. It's good to just be here, enjoy a few minutes of respite. Liam congratulates himself and Niall silently when he sees Louis's shoulder drop down a few inches, relaxing.  
  
"I should get back inside," Louis says after ten minutes spent looking aimlessly into the horizon, grinding his cigarette stub down with the sole of his shoe.  
  
Liam nods. Louis touches his shoulder, a light touch between the shoulderblades that seems to say "Don't worry", and heads back inside. Liam breathes out a sigh he hadn't realized he was holding.  
  
Niall laughs, a short, desperate laugh that Liam wants to cram back into his mouth. "Well," he says, taking a swig of his beer (it must be warm by now), "we're doing the best we can."  
  
Liam isn't sure they are, but he doesn't say it. He hums.  
  
Coming back inside is like stepping into a madhouse. Harry is whimpering, a long, drawn-out whimper, Louis holding his head against his chest. He looks up at Liam when he comes into the room.  
  
"He's in pain," he says, as though it wasn't obvious. "He says it's his bones and muscles and organs, can we do something? Is he – is there something wrong?"  
  
Liam bites back the,  _Of course there's something wrong_  on the tip of his tongue. He opens his mouth to say something – anything -, but Zayn talks first, from his place kneeling on the mattresses next to Harry and running a hand down his back.  
  
"It's the endorphins," he says, not looking at them. His eyes are fixed on Harry's neck as though looking away might make him fall apart. "His body stopped producing them because the –  _it_  produced them. It's what created the addiction. His body is oversensitive, every sensation is heightened, that's why he's suffering so much."  
  
Louis looks at Zayn blankly. It's not what he's searching for – clinical information would probably reassure somebody else, but not Louis. Louis needs people to freak out with him, or react at his level – cry and kneel and panic and hug him. Liam would, but he feels so weary, so numb – he can't move.  
  
(Harry's talking in the background, but they're used to it. It's like he's constantly punishing Louis for something, describing his suffering in his skin in crazed murmurs. "Nerves on fire, L-lou, help me...")  
  
Niall kneels down next to Louis. "Louis, mate, calm down, s'fine. Remember what we said? Breathe. We'll give him some Imodium, he'll be fine. It'll all be fine. Don't worry. Calm down."  
  
His voice is soft, soothing, and it makes Liam's eyelids feel heavy. It's been so long since he has slept, he feels like a zombie, wandering blindly in this endless obscurity.  
  
They give Harry the Imodium and wait until he calms down a little, the shaking reduced to a small, constant tremor. He sometimes murmurs things they can't hear into Louis's neck, and Louis nods methodically, eyes shut. Liam counts the veins on his eyelids while he waits for sleep to come. He doesn't really want it to, to be honest: tomorrow won't be a party. He lets himself doze off anyway. He's the responsible one.  
  
The last thing he sees before he falls asleep are his bandmates' faces: Harry, with his bitten lips and pale skin, red-rimmed eyes flickering shut; Louis, holding him close with one arm, looking exhausted even in his sleep; Zayn, face buried in his pillow, his elbow tucked against Niall's ribs; and Niall near him, a hand hovering near Harry's neck, fingers loose.  
  
A thought starts in his head, about tomorrow, but he doesn't finish it.  
  
It's four in the afternoon when they wake up, and Harry is shaking.  
  
They wake up almost simultaneously, when Harry kicks one of his legs and his knee hits Niall in the stomach. It takes a few seconds for them to realize that he's still sleeping – he looks feverish, sweat rolling down in beads on his forehead and temples, moaning. He looks like he's having an epilepsy crisis. Liam has never seen anything more terrifying.  
  
They all turn to him, silently asking him for advice. "What do we do now?" their hungry gazes ask, but Liam can't move, can't say anything.  
  
Thankfully Niall, ever the hero, recovers faster than the others and grabs Harry's shoulders, shaking him. Liam wants to ask him what he's doing (if he's making it  _worse_ , but worse is such an abstract notion right now) but understands when Harry's eyes fly open, wide and scared.  
  
"No," he whines, clutching Niall's hand hard, "give me -"  
  
Louis is looking at him, transfixed – he looks like he wants to cover his ears, but he doesn't. That's another thing Liam will never understand: why they're so loyal to each other, and how this loyalty  _works_ , how it doesn't crumble to pieces every time they disappoint each other.  
  
Niall doesn't say no, only pulls Harry flush against his chest. They can still hear his words, muffled in Niall's shirt ("It was so good before, why did you, I, please, please,  _please_  -"). They've read it all before (Wikipedia has never seemed so cruel, describing their best friend's torture so dispassionately, almost second by second); they can imagine how it feels, except they can't. They can only sit here and watch.  
  
Zayn is the first to shake the horror off, and the words tumble out of his mouth in a jumbled flurry. "What did you say we had to do now, Liam?" he asks, then coughs, clears his throat, and repeats, more slowly.  
  
Liam blinks. "I, uh -"  
  
He takes a look around him, his friends' faces, tilted expectantly towards him. His ears are full of white noise, and everything seems so strange, like the whole universe is in slow-motion. Someone touches his shoulder; he jumps.  
  
"Liam?" Zayn says, looking concerned.  
  
"You look weird, mate," Niall says, and crawls closer on the mattress. Liam wants to tell him to give him room to breathe, but he doesn't. They're all hurt enough, and today will need all their strength.  
  
He doesn't feel entirely lucid, his head swimming with a heady kind of vertigo, but he clears his throat. "Okay," he says, hoping his voice doesn't come out as unsteady as it sounds to his own ears. "Where is the L-tyrosine?"  
  
It's sort of morbidly funny how well they know this drug they had no idea even existed five days ago, Liam thinks as the word roll on his tongue, heavy and loaded.  
  
"I left it in the bathroom," Zayn says, and gets up to go fetch it.  
  
Niall mumbles something about them needing food (Liam agrees – he thinks he might pass out if he doesn't get something solid in his body, especially after having seen so much liquid shit and vomit in the last few days).  
  
Louis settles in the mattresses and gestures towards Harry, but Liam tells him to go brush his teeth. He's spent far too much time with Harry since the beginning of this – he ought to get some time to breathe and get his head straight. Liam feels guilty for it, of course, even though he knows there's nothing he could've done; that's how he's wired.  
  
He draws Harry to his chest and tries to soothe him and get him to sleep a little more, but Harry keeps complaining about back aches. He's still sweating bullets, squirming in Liam's arms. Snot drips from his nose almost constantly, and tears from his eyes. There's a mound of used tissues next to them. Liam is thankful that Harry is able to use them by himself for now; they had to do it for him while he was hallucinating the second day, and it's about as pleasant as it sounds.  
  
Liam spots a bag of groceries on the table at the same time as Niall comes back with a tray of food. He grabs a slice of toast and crams it in his mouth. God, it feels good.  
  
"Where's all that from?" he mouths around the food, wincing as Harry shakes particularly hard in his lap.  
  
"I called someone," Niall says, and Liam is so thankful for it, for  _him_ , that it makes him breathless for a second, mouth empty of words.  
  
He thinks, vaguely, of saying something (thank you, thank you, thank you so much, but of course it wouldn't be enough), but it's the moment the boys choose to come bounding back into the room, as though attracted by the smell of food.  
  
It's almost peaceful, Liam thinks, grabbing a glass of juice and downing it in one go, laughing at his bandmate's weak cheers. It's almost like before. He basks in the feeling, petting Harry's sweaty hair, tenderness overwhelming him (he feels like his body is a shore and he can't help but let the emotions take him over, waft over him and bury him in their intensity). Maybe they can make it through this, after all, he thinks, and lets the crazy hope settle low in his gut, exuding warmth. Maybe they're stronger than he thought they were. Maybe, if they're together...  
  
The feeling doesn't last long, of course. They talk for a few minutes, Harry finally still on his lap, and it's mostly all right – at least until they realize that if Harry's still it's because he's unconscious, knocked out by the pain.  
  
Then it's the panic, of course, and they drag Harry to the bathroom, Niall's loud strings of curses a sort of horrible background noise. Harry only wakes up after they spray cold water in his face and slap him repeatedly, trading crazed glances (what if – what if this crack they heard was his jaw breaking? What if they aren't good enough to take care of him, after all? They should've known, they should've known, that's what you get for playing Jesus... What if he dies? Fuck, fuck – what if that's the end of the story – Popstar Harry Styles Inadvertently Killed by Bandmates and Heroin Addiction? That wasn't supposed to happen.)  
  
But then he breathes in, rashly, and his open mouth, leaking with blood and cold water, seems like the most beautiful thing they've ever seen. He looks terrified, though, and he crawls back from their helping hands, curling in a corner of the bathtub.  
  
"Go away," he says, and then: "Don't hurt me, go away, go away..."  
  
He tries to draw his knees to his chest but his legs give, either from the slippery bathtub or the weakness of his body. He hasn't been able to walk properly, these last few days: getting him to walk to the kitchen is a feat.  
  
Louis kneels on the tiles and reaches out a hand to Harry.  
  
"You'll get wet," Zayn whispers absently next to him, but Louis doesn't seem to care.  
  
"Hey," Louis says softly, and tries to touch Harry's cheek, but Harry slides to the side, avoiding the touch. Liam doesn't look at Louis's face – he doesn't need to to see the hurt register, settle into the crease between Louis's eyebrows and the wrinkles at the corners of his mouth. "We don't want to hurt you."  
  
Harry looks back at him, his eyes blank. His mouth is bleeding – Liam hopes they haven't broken anything while trying to revive him. He adds "Check Harry's mouth" to his already endless mental to-do list. His head feels heavier than a ton of lead, clouded and blurry. He wonders if Harry's symptoms are contagious.  
  
They don't move for a few seconds, tight around Louis, watching him try to tame Harry as though he were a wild animal (maybe a gray fox or one of these little adders, Liam thinks distractedly). Eventually they shake the shock off and trail out of the bathroom one after the others, wet clothes leaving damp trails behind them.  
  
Liam finds Zayn on the terrace. He's put on a pair of dry jeans, but he's still shirtless, watching his phone with a sort of quiet disbelief. He sets it down when he sees Liam, reaching a hand to draw him near and slip an arm around his waist. He rests his head on Liam's shoulder, sighing a little.  
  
"You okay?" he asks.  
  
Liam hums. He knows what the question is, and it isn't "Are you okay?" as much as "Are you still holding on?" and he is, he is. He can do this. He's always been stronger than he looks, even with his ill-working kidney and his freakish heart that loves too much.  
  
Liam gestures lazily to the phone. "What was that?" he asks.  
  
Zayn rubs at his eyes. "The label," he sighs eventually.  
  
Liam waits for him to offer more, but he doesn't. At the back of his mind, Liam thinks about Louis, how he's still with Harry and someone should go there, be there with him even though he thinks he doesn't need anyone, but he can't get his feet to move. He hopes for Niall, a little selfishly.  
  
"You want something to drink?" Liam offers, still not moving. "Beer?"  
  
Zayn disentangles from him and drops into a plastic chair, crossing his legs under himself. "Do we still have juice?"  
  
Liam nods.  
  
"That, then. I need vitamins, otherwise I won't make it through this shit."  
  
Liam would offer reassurance, say "Of course you'll make it through, we all will", but it's like he's used up all the reassurance he had stocked into his lungs and has nothing left to give, save for a nod and a poor smile.  
  
"Yeah, okay," he says. "I hope Niall thought to tell his guy to buy more, though, otherwise we'll be out."  
  
Zayn shrugs and makes an aborted gesture towards his pocket. He stops halfway through, though, and his hand hangs awkwardly in the air for a second before he drops it back into his lap. Liam wonders if it's because he's here or because of Harry. He hopes it's the latter – at least it will have been two birds with one stone, a big freaky raven and this sneaky nightingale. Maybe he could throw Zayn's fags out, one of these nights. It would send a kind of a message. Liam half-wishes he were ballsy enough to do it.  
  
He heads back inside and goes to grabs the juice and two glasses, his footsteps feeling heavy and slow. God, the first thing he'll do when this is over (if it ever ends) is nap for like, forty-seven hours or something. No paparazzi, no vomiting, no tears, no fucking orange juice. It'll be the best.  
  
He comes across Niall toweling his hair as he walks back to the terrace, leaning against the couch. Liam half-smiles at him, gesturing with his head in a way that's supposed to mean, "Are they alone?" and Niall nods.  
  
Niall makes a shooing motion with his hands, and Liam gives himself permission to take it as a dismissal, permission to be led, for once, instead of leading. Niall will take care of this, he lets himself think, and crushes the affection back into a crumpled ball of feelings into his chest.  
  
"Here," he says, and hands Zayn his glass, dragging a chair next to his so they can seat together, knees pressed.  
  
It's strange to go on holidays now, and it's something else Liam doesn't know whether to resent or love, the way he feels so _alone_  when there isn't someone's arm around his shoulders or a chest pressed against his back, anchoring him in. He even gets it with Danielle sometimes, keeps letting his sentences trail off because he's waiting for Louis to interrupt him or for Harry to make a dirty joke.  
  
It's another of those things that was beautiful at the beginning, dragging him out of his teenager shell of timidity and awkwardness and into this clothes-sharing, constantly touching tangle of boys. Now it oppresses him, another addiction that stitched itself to his heart while he wasn't looking, a love sewn on the inside of his skin. There have been so many moments this past week when he's wished he could just take a few steps away and  _breathe_ , but couldn't – because being too far feels like having an IV cut off, feels like air supply being ripped away, lungs empty.  
  
Zayn knocks their knees together, and Liam presses against him, maybe a little too hard. He doesn't know what he wants it to mean, maybe "It's okay" and maybe "Fuck this", but it doesn't really matter. Zayn doesn't need things to always  _mean_ something.  
  
Liam allows himself the end of his glass of juice before he asks Zayn, "What did they want?" He's never been really good at subtlety. He's too tired for it, anyway.  
  
"What?" Zayn asks, blinking a little owlishly. He's fingering his necklace, probably to stop himself from drawing a fag out of his pack.  
  
"The label. What did they want?"  
  
"Oh," Zayn says. He looks a little out-of-balance without a cigarette between his fingers, Liam realizes, a little awkward, like he doesn't quite know how to coordinate his limbs. "They wanted to know when we were going to be finished."  
  
Liam laughs, a coarse, breathy laugh. "What did you tell them?"  
  
"Bastards, the lot o' them," Zayn grumbles, and Liam chuckles, asks: "That what you told them?", can't really bring himself to worry that it  _is_ , actually, what he told them, even though it's possible. He doesn't look like it, but Zayn's about as spontaneous as Louis; he tends to do things on a whim a lot, and, like Louis, it's not always intelligent things.  
  
"No, of course not," Zayn laughs back, low and a little faded. "Wish I had, though." That's where he would take a drag of his cigarette, and he starts raising his hand, but drops it back down when he realizes what he's doing. He sends Liam an apologetic glance; Liam nods. "Told them we didn't know, probably tennish days or so. But I guess Harry's not going to be up for anything for a bit, anyway, so."  
  
"What did they tell you?"  
  
"The usual, they're considering dropping us and all that shit. I told them to speak to someone else. They won't drop us, anyway."  
  
"That's what you're saying," Liam says. He isn't quite so hopeful.  
  
"No, I know it," Zayn says, and he does look quite sure, whatever reason he has for it. "We're still too successful, and Harry's going to get better, he's only been using for a few months."  
  
He winces as he says it, and Liam can't help wincing in tandem. They're close enough to know exactly when it started, but not to stop him from doing it – it's what they're both thinking, how extraordinarily hypocrite and fucked-up the whole thing was – is.  
  
But the truth is, it's not that simple. It's not like being five co-dependent boys is conventional, or even easy. Parts of it  _are_  easy, of course, and it's what drew them into it in the first place – how easy it is to sit at five on a three-place couch, how naturally the snuggling comes, how they love each fiercely, strongly, without hesitation. But it's hard to draw boundaries when you're five eighteen-year-old lads in a bus, on the top of the world. That's the hard part. Defining this.  
  
They don't have a word for it, because that would make it freakish, official, something they would have to  _talk_  about: but after a while they had to set some ground rules. It's intoxicating, is the thing. It's easy to go too far without noticing it.  
  
They tried to give each other breathing space, make their own choices about the things that matter, houses, cars, friends, outings. They don't need to go everywhere together, after all. So of course when Harry did heroin once at this party and told them about how amazing it was, how it felt like "being on a fucking  _cloud_ , mate, you wouldn't even believe it, and this really hot girl brought it to us, like, on a silver tray, it was bloody incredible", they were a little worried (well, Liam was worried, Louis mostly laughed and Niall asked him if he'd fucked the hot girl), but they let it slide. Harry is smart, they thought. He can deal with this.  
  
The rest is history. It all went to shit, they were afraid, they didn't stop it. Then the tabloids, and Harry Styles was a junkie, another boyband failure, and then the label decided to take a last shot at good old-fashioned image-rebuilding. Look at Harry Styles get better thanks to his mates. And they accepted, because it's what they wanted, rebuild Harry, and yeah, they needed the push, but once they were in they were decided and they started telling no and now they're in a bungalow drinking orange juice like it's going to save them.  
  
"You think he'll have after-affects?" Liam asks. He kind of wishes he smoked, too. All this twitching is making him nervous.  
  
Zayn shrugs. "Apparently it depends on the person? I dunno. Harry's strong, but he's a bit messed-up in the head." He exhales. "At least he didn't start using because of a tragic love story or some shit like that."  
  
"No, yeah, you're right," Liam says nonsensically.  
  
There are a few seconds of silence, the noises from outside muffled by the bushes.  
  
"You think we can work it out, then? I mean, the band?" Liam asks eventually, leaning forward to pour himself another glass. He pours Zayn one too, even though he didn't ask.  
  
"Probably," Zayn says, and then: "You know them," he waves vaguely in the general direction of the gates, "their memory is pretty short-term."  
  
"I guess," Liam says, instead of  _that's what I'm afraid of_.  
  
Harry can't sleep at all that night, so they don't sleep either, sit cross-legged on the mattresses watching the Simpsons even though Zayn hates it ("They're just so freaky-looking! And the shit they say is weird. This show is just, it's freaky, mate, that's all I have to say," he told Louis once, and Louis side-eyed him and just decided that it frightened him (which it probably does) and that it was hilarious and to be a source of perpetual mockery) because they know it soothes Harry. Harry is sitting in the midst, his legs slung over Zayn's and his back to Niall's chest, Louis's fingers circling his wrist as though he were afraid to lose him.  
  
They deal with the depression and the paranoia, talking to him in hushed tones and holding his arms down when he starts flailing and tries to break out of their communal embrace. Liam strokes his hair almost mechanically through the night, until he gets a cramp in his wrist, but even then doesn't let go. He's not sure he would even know how to.  
  
Harry has to go to the loo every once in a while, and they take turns accompanying him. That's probably the grossest part, but not the worst – and that's a little worrying, but Liam's too numb to even think about it. Diarrhea is one of the symptoms that go on the longest, or so he read, so he better get used to it anyway.  
  
When it's Liam turns, he helps Harry stand, slinging an arm under his armpit. Harry breathes into his neck, hot and panting, and they wobble to the bathroom. Liam stays outside, brain running on empty. It's only when they come back to the main room, Harry's palm pressed open against the nape of Liam's neck, that Liam catches a conversation between Louis and Zayn. He stills, Harry falling limply against his chest, his curls grazing Liam's chin.  
  
"… it could help. Who knows," Zayn is saying.  
  
"You think praying could help Harry?" Louis replies, sounding disbelieving. Liam tries to imagine them and has no difficulty doing so, Niall curled into Zayn's ribs, Zayn's arm resting on his shoulders, looking like he always looks, half-bored and half-lost, and Louis staring at him with intense eyes, elbows on his knees.  
  
Liam doesn't believe in keeping secrets, let alone here and now, so he steps into the room, holding Harry up. They glance up at him, Zayn's eyelids drooping a little. They're all tired, and weary, and sad.  
  
"Hey," Liam says softly. "What're you talking about?"  
  
"God," Zayn says simply.  
  
They all know that Zayn's a Muslim, but he's never been eager to talk about his faith, and they never asked, either. He certainly doesn't pray five times a day; Liam thinks they would've noticed.  
  
"Yeah?" Liam asks. Zayn nods. "What are you saying about him, then?"  
  
Louis shifts a little and gets a hand on Harry's ankle, stroking the skin lightly. Harry hums. "Wondering if he could help good ol' Harry there."  
  
"Faith isn't really something you can choose, though," Zayn says, muting the TV and gesturing towards Niall when Louis raises an eyebrow. "Don't want to wake him up."  
  
Niall does need the sleep, probably more than the rest of them. He's been a soldier – he is, he still is.  
  
"But, like, I don't know," Zayn continues. "Praying helps sometimes."  
  
"Yeah, well, God hasn't been a lot of help 'til now," Louis says bitchily.  
  
Zayn doesn't rise to the bait. They've all learned not to answer to Louis's provocations when he's being bitchy; it's just his way to deal with things, the same way Zayn smokes cigarette after cigarette and Liam sometimes cleans for an entire day. It's just things they do.  
  
"Look, mate, I don't know," Zayn sighs, running a tired hand through his hair. "All I'm saying is, it could help, is all."  
  
"Not sure it will," says a voice, raw and coarse, and fuck, it's Harry. He's been so different lately, so far away even though he's always at the center of their tight little group, shivering and shaking. "Pretty sure you have to actually believe in God for it to work."  
  
"It's not that hard," Zayn says, looking at Harry like he's just discovered him, and it makes Liam's chest clench painfully. "It's not like it's weirder than, like, planes actually flying. I mean, if you're okay with a bazillion tons of metal just hanging in the air, I don't see why you can't believe in God."  
  
"Actually, planes -" Liam starts, because he can't help himself, but Zayn cuts him off. "You know what I mean, Li."  
  
It's not a bad argument, really, and they all dwell on it a little, basking in each other's warmth. It's a small respite, they know it, but they'll take what they can, like they always do.  
  
"Yeah, okay," Harry says eventually, his voice still low, husky with sleep (even though he probably won't sleep, the craving keeping him awake). "I'll think about it."  
  
They don't talk about it after that, just drowse as dawn slowly colors the sky anise and yellow and pink, talking about Katy Perry's costumes and which member of the Wanted is the stupidest ("It's a tie," Louis declares with his usual Louis-ness. "They're all as stupid. And that's pretty fucking stupid," he adds with a shit-eating grin. Liam would call him out on it, but he's too tired, and being the responsible one is growing old, to be honest.)  
  
They're settled into a routine, now. It isn't as hard as it was at the beginning, the sharp, piercing pain of disappointment and anger. They don't fight like they did the first day, just jumping at each other's throats because they can't deal with the situation. Instead it's the slow grind of days, the churning hours, one at a time. There's no more thinking about what will happen in two years: it's who's going to hold Harry's hand as he cries from muscle ache in the bath; who will hold his hair back and tell him that he's okay, that he's not going to die, so many times that their throats feel sore; who's going to wrap him into an embrace when he goes into a craving and keep him from falling when his knees give again.  
  
They still check in with Anne (it's the least they can do, after she let them basically kidnap her son instead of putting him into rehab), but she doesn't get it, of course. It's hard to get it when you're not in the room, holding Harry's hand as he sinks his nails into the flesh of your palm. It's hard to even imagine. They know: if they had, they never would've let it got that far.  
  
The label starts checking with them more and more after the sixth day, when Harry starts getting better. He still doesn't sleep a lot, three of four hours a night tops, but he takes Imodium for the runs and vitamins every morning. Take every small victory, right?  
  
And it is, a victory, at least as long as they don't think about what's coming next, going back to the US and making music again. Liam can't make the pieces of the future fit, and he tries to make himself think about it the less he can.  _Do that first,_  he tells himself.  _Put Harry back together, and then you'll think about the future._  
  
But Liam's always been the one who took this really seriously, the one who wanted to win, to get famous. He's the one who made them sing their harmonies and went twice to audition for the X-factor because that's how hard he wanted to get it. He's not going to let go now, Harry or not Harry. (That's why it's hard to get over the anger, too, because Harry  _knew_  how important this was to Liam, to them, and he still went and fucked it all up. Liam tries not to think about that either, the conversations them and Harry will have to have once they're over the rough patch.)  
  
They could each take a room and take turns at sleeping with Harry, or even at checking up on him, but they keep sleeping on the mattresses in the middle of the living-room. It's uncomfortable, they wake up with backaches and with the sun blinding them at five a.m. because there aren't any blinds, but they're together, and sometimes it feels like it's the only way they can breathe, with their legs entangled and their arms twined together.  
  
Liam starts counting the days, a little surreptitiously.  _How many days until we have to face the real world_ , he counts in his head every time he sees a new number on his phone, taunting him. For some reason (probably a bad one), it feels scarier stepping outside than it had stepping in. Now that they're here, deep in their cocoon of half-sleep and routine, settled in their careful equilibrium, going back outside feels a little suicidal.  
  
"They're going to tear us to pieces," Louis says when he catches Liam looking out the window, trying to imagine the road past the gate, the paparazzi crowding against the metallic bars.  
  
Liam jumps. "What?"  
  
"We can't let Harry go back to that," Louis says fiercely, looking straight in front of him. "He'll relapse."  
  
Liam knows that. They all know that. "He'll relapse," Louis repeats.  
  
"He won't," Niall says, coming up behind Louis and plastering himself behind his back.  
  
"You know he will," Louis says, but he doesn't shake Niall off. "Where's Harry?" he asks. Liam wonders if they'll be able to get rid of this habit of always checking where Harry is at all times.  
  
"Zayn's trying to convince him to eat," Niall says.  
  
"Is it working?"  
  
Niall doesn't answer. Probably not. Zayn isn't the best at convincing, anyway.  
  
"What do you want to do, then?" Niall asks. Liam has his back to him, so he can't tell if the question is directed at both Louis and him or just at him. Probably just him.  
  
"We can't hide here forever," he says, ever the pragmatist. He doesn't really want to be, but someone has to.  
  
Louis sighs. "Yeah," he says, the word drawing out on his tongue, and then: "I guess you're right," as though he'd seriously considered it, staying here forever, the five of them huddled on their mattresses, sleeping on the floor for the rest of their lives. Knowing him, he probably has. Liam never really understood the way his brain works, and he probably never will.  
  
"Can't we stay here a bit more, though? He's still not okay," Louis says, almost pleading. It's a strange thing; Louis isn't usually one to beg.  
  
"He'll never be okay," Niall says, brash truth as always, and Liam can sense Louis tense next to him, but Niall must do something, because he doesn't snap, only sighs again and goes limp, Niall's arm tight around his midsection. Having them so close is making Liam a little drunk. He can't think.  
  
"We have to make a plan or something," he says, because it's what he's best at, making plans, lists. Diagrams, not so much, but the rest he's a real crack at, one of the reasons why he was good in school. Good organization skills, he remembers reading on his report cards, and wondering if it was a compliment.  
  
"Fuck plans," Louis says, but it's flat, unconvinced. Of course they're going to have to make a plan; Louis isn't stupid, he knows it, he just doesn't want to accept it.  
  
"We can stay for a week more or something," Liam says. "After that we'll have to do something about the label."  
  
There's a silence, and Liam gets, from the soft padding sounds, that Zayn is joining them. He slumps in a basket chair next to their little group and lets his head loll, eyelids closing. "He's napping," he whispers, and their silence is like a soft cheer. They store this little victory with the others in the messy drawers in their chests.  
  
"Yeah," Louis says eventually, too long after to be answering to anyone but himself. "A week sounds good."  
  
They talk about meaningless things after that. These conversations always draw the marrow out of their bones and leave them limp, unable to do anything but speak in hushed tones, leaning against each other. Liam doesn't really mind; it's more peaceful than a lot of the rest, after all, and peaceful is what they need right now.  
  
They don't really function following the old hours anymore, either, and that's another thing Liam wonders if it'll be hard to get unused to. Their days still mostly follow Harry's sleep pattern: when he sleeps, they sleep, and the rest of the time, they take care of him. They take turns at sleeping alone, too, of course, because they can't live on three hours of restless slumber by night, but it's always harder without the heat of the others around them, and most of the time it ends up being small naps populated by nightmares.  
  
Liam avoids mirrors and doesn't look at himself too hard in the shiny surface of the kitchen counter either. He's not sure he wants to know what he looks like. (They probably should take care of that, too, before they leave. It's the kind of shit the media – not to talk about the public – eats up.)  
  
The next time he wakes up (he doesn't even remember when he fell asleep, but he'd bet he wasn't on the mattresses when it happened, and he feels a surge of sudden affection towards his bandmates as he imagines them carrying him there, holding his head and trying not to wake him up), the first thing he sees, after the sun blinds him and makes him blink owlishly a couple of times, is Zayn. He's at the computer, glasses on and looking focused as he scrolls, sometimes taking sips from his glass.  
  
"What is it?" Liam asks and coughs. His throat is dry, but he can't bring himself to stand up or even ask Zayn for a glass of water. He crawls on the mattresses to dig into Louis's bag and finds a water bottle. He guzzles half of it down, half-sighing as he gulps avidly.  
  
Zayn startles a little. "What?" he asks. Liam gestures to his glass.  
  
"Oh, that – new juice. Niall figured we would get tired of the other one soon," Zayn says, and he smiles. It's sudden and shining and nice, and just for that, Liam wants to hug Niall hard enough to crush his bones.  
  
He swallows his love down. "What flavor is it?" he asks, making a show of eyeing the liquid with distrust (okay, maybe not so much of a show, but that shit is  _red_ , Liam can't be blamed for being cautious).  
  
Zayn scrunches up his nose. He looks like a child. "Um, blood orange and grapefruit, I think?" He takes a sip. "And maybe tangerine," he adds, as though he could recognize tangerine just by tasting the juice. Liam laughs.  
  
"Is it good?" he asks. He isn't sure he wants to touch it, it looks a little too much like blood to his taste, but why not. Nothing is really strange anymore, not after the last couple of years.  
  
Zayn smiles again. Liam feels a little blessed. "Yeah," he says. "It's like, sweet and a little acidic at the same time and, like, stronger than orange juice. It's good."  
  
Watching Zayn extol the virtue of Niall's alternative orange juice has something weird to it, but it's its own kind of amazingness, the slow-morning feeling, like accordion or xylophone or a circus act. There's no need to be sad for now, and that's a good thing.  
  
They go about their respective duties without talking, reveling in each other's presence, in knowing that they're close, close enough to touch, and Liam waits until he can't before he asks: "What are you researching?"  
  
Zayn looks guilty for a second, but it's gone in a flash, replaced by this sort of quiet desperation that Liam wished he hadn't gotten used to. "Oh, the – um, the long-term symptoms for Opiate Withdrawal," (and by now Liam's used enough to the words that he can hear the capital letters in Zayn's voice, "you know? So we can make that plan."  
  
"Thanks," Liam says. Zayn knows Liam feels like it's his job, doing the research and making the bullet-point lists, even though it drains the energy out of his bones and kills him slowly, sweetly.  
  
Zayn shrugs, a loose-shouldered shrug that means,  _Don't worry about it, mate._  
  
"No, really," Liam repeats, but Zayn doesn't want to talk about it, and Liam can understand that. They've had their share of soul-crushing conversations these last few days, after all.  
  
They hang around in comfortable silence. Liam sits in the couch and doesn't turn the TV on, closing his eyes and letting his mind wander. He's always been a quiet kid, and it's been a long time since he's perfected the art to close his eyes and build himself futures. He just never really grew out of it.  
  
"What are you finding?" he asks after a while, caught up in Zayn's silent profile, his sharp jaw and drawn eyebrows. He's changed so much; they've all changed. It's a little flabbergasting.  
  
Zayn hums. "Apparently there are chances that the insomnia and the diarrhea might last for – a few months, or so I've read. But it depends on the person. Um, and then you never know about the psychological stuff, like depression and paranoia and all this shit, and he'll have to take vitamins for a while, but -"  
  
Liam stops him with a raised hand. It's not "Stop" – Liam wouldn't say stop, wouldn't let himself –; it's "Let me take this in". Zayn nods, once, and goes back to his research.  
  
Liam starts making plans in his head – plans of how they're going to come back to London and sort their shit out, how they'll make Harry move back in with Louis (Louis'll probably insist on it, anyway), try not to let him be alone too much, plans for interviews, questions no one can ask, the tough ones Liam will field for a while, plans of putting out a new album to distract everyone and tell them that they're okay while they rebuild themselves. Their castle is a little sandy these days.  
  
Yeah, they'll have a shitload of things to do when they come back, that's for sure.  
  
"Making plans?" Niall says when he comes in the room, a banana in hand. They were supposed to be for Harry, but Liam's pretty sure that Niall's the only one eating them. He's become completely crazy about them – Liam suspects it'll be his primary food regime when they come back to the real world. Zayn chuckles.  
  
"You know me too well," Liam says, and lets out a little yelp when Niall drops into his lap, wrapping his arms around him like an octopus.  
  
"Yeah," Niall whispers against his collarbones, and it makes Liam shiver a little, such a big truth murmured into his skin, but he doesn't say anything.  
  
"What was that for?" he asks when Niall pulls away, picking up his banana from the table where he put it down when he jumped Liam.  
  
Niall smiles – still not his usual smile, but this one's not too bad, small and quirking the corner of his lips. It's less shining, less radiant and juvenile and carefree, but it's okay. "You looked like you needed it," he shrugs.  
  
Liam looks at him and tries to say,  _I don't know what we would've done without you_  with just his eyes.  
  
Niall nods a little, and that's when Zayn looks up from his computer screen and says, "We should get Harry to do, like, sports."  
  
They both look at him, a little bewildered. Harry's never been very physical (well, at least not outside of fucking, and they prefer not to know too much about that, boundaries and all). The idea of him doing sports in his normal state is pretty hilarious in itself, to be honest.  
  
"What?" Niall asks, which pretty much summarizes Liam's train of thought as well.  
  
Zayn's mouth screws itself up in what might be a sort of reluctant smile. "Yeah, not kidding," he says, and then: "The Internet says that he needs it to, like, get his body working and all. Get back into shape." He shrugs.  
  
There's a silence.  
  
"Well, there's always the pool," Niall says.  
  
Liam shakes his head. "No, too dangerous." He doesn't want to have to worry about Harry drowning on top of everything else. It may be selfish, but it's what it is, and Liam just doesn't feel like spending his every minute worrying that Harry's head might not resurface. He's got enough things to fear, that's all.  
  
"Yeah, you're probably right," Niall says. "Um, there's a ping pong table somewhere in the garage, I think? Or bikes, but I don't think it's a good idea, except if we just ride in the garden. That's not going to be super effective."  
  
In the end, they end up drawing the old ping pong table out of the garage. It hasn't been used in years, and it's one of the old models, the heavy blue-and-yellow ones that look like props from a 90s TV show. They spend half an hour installing it and another dusting it off, and after that they have to find the rackets, which it turns out are hidden in one of the boxes in the attic. Liam wonders if Robin will be mad at him; they've made a fucking mess of the house. It's for a good cause, he tells to himself, his automatic defense kicking in. He's not sure it is, but he decides it's better not to think about it.  
  
They set the table in the middle of the courtyard because there's not enough space inside for it to fit, but it starts raining almost as soon as it's ready, a heavy pouring summer rain, with hot round drops and cracking thunder. Niall catches Zayn's nape and presses their foreheads together, hair leaking, laughing. Louis is laughing too; it's smaller, and it sounds out-of-breath, but it's there, ringing softly from where he's standing near them, Harry safely tucked under his arm. Liam starts chuckling too, drawn in almost helplessly. He doesn't bother resisting.  
  
When the rain gets too hard they all run inside, and they towel Harry despite his protests. He looks like a mummy, fluffy white on every part of his body, wet hair sticking out, and he's laughing too, coarse and low – it's like a revelation or a rebirth, or something less important but still spectacular, a small first step on the moon.  _He's coming back to us_ , Liam thinks, and he is, gaining back his old self bit by bit, even though they all know there'll always be something wrecked in him, just like they know they'll never be the same, either.  
  
It's not long before thunder starts shaking the sky, and they all watch with wide eyes, snuggled together on their pile of mattresses. It feels like before, like the first time they were here, uneasy and still strangers, except that now they're wise and their cracks are wider and they've toured in America. It's a little different, but it's still them. Liam is kind of relieved that they're still here, even after all this.  
  
He spreads his arms as far as he can to try and wrap them all in some kind of monster embrace, his fingertips touching Louis's shoulder on one side and Zayn's on the other, the undersides of his arms brushing the nape of Niall's neck and Harry's damp curls. He tries to be angry, just to see if he still can, if he hasn't lost that (because he wants to keep it, sometimes it's all that keeps him going, like a sort of holy fire), but he can't conjure it up. It's like the rain has washed it out of him, and he feels mellow, contented and full and warm, like everything's going to be okay.  
  
Liam's not the type to let it all go, but for once he figures he earned it, so he does. It's nothing remarkable: it's like dropping a cigarette in the water, or letting the string of a kite go, it just fizzles or flies away and you feel lighter, maybe a little happier, a little whimsical. Liam sighs and rests his head on Niall's shoulder. The thunder rolls in the sky.  
  
Harry still shakes a little sometimes, but it's less noticeable with lightning striking the sky and thunder rumbling lowly in their ears. It feels inconsequential, like something they don't have to worry about.  
  
"We'll play tomorrow," says Zayn as a particularly violent flash of lightning illuminates the sky, sounding dazed.  
  
It takes Liam a second to understand what he's talking about, to register the drenched table in the courtyard and his fingers digging probably a little painfully into the flesh of Zayn's arms.  
  
"Sorry," he mumbles, and then, belatedly: "Yeah."  
  
"S'okay," Zayn says, his eyes unfocused.  
  
Liam wonders if they're like him, a little dizzy with this love that is so strong and unexpected. He searches their faces in the half-darkness, all looking outside at the light that crosses the sky.  _We're good_ , he thinks, and for the first time in weeks, they kind of are.  
  
They fall asleep asleep like that, a pile of boys in the middle of the living-room, lulled to sleep by the tap-tap of the rain and the cracks of the thunder. When Liam wakes up and glances at his phone it's nearly eleven. He feels a little sore, and he doesn't really want to move, so he just hauls himself up onto his elbows and glances blearily around him, blinking.  
  
"Hi," he hears. It's Louis – he's sitting cross-legged on one of the table chairs, looking at him with wide eyes. Maybe it's the weather, this sort of white light that only exists after the storms, but his eyes look very blue.  
  
"Hi," Liam answers. "It's late."  
  
Usually he wakes up the first of them, not that he's a naturally early riser but because someone has to, and he makes the ranks. Zayn is the hardest to wake up, most of the time, even though Niall isn't easy either, but that's mostly because he doesn't want to. It feels good to wake up naturally for once, because of the light streaming in the room and fanning on his face.  
  
"Yeah," Louis says, and smiles a little, almost shy smile. "We let you sleep."  
  
There's something in his eyes that says  _You deserve it_  but Liam doesn't answer, isn't sure if he could without breaking into tiny pieces. Louis knows how he feels.  
  
"Thanks," Liam says, not to say  _You didn't need to_. He probably wouldn't have accepted if they had suggested he sleep the morning away, because he hates not having control over things, not being there when they happen, but he needed it. His shoulders feel relaxed, like sleep made the tight knots in them melt away. Liam knows they'll reappear soon enough, at the first worry or the first noise from Harry, this keening noise high in his throat he only makes when he's really in pain, but for now it's good.  
  
"You're converted, then?" he says to Louis, to say something. Louis cocks an eyebrow interrogatively.  
  
LIam points to the glass in Louis's hand, filled with red liquid. Louis chuckles. "Oh, that," he says. "Yeah, it's good. You should try it."  
  
Liam doesn't say  _No, thank you, I've seen enough blood for the rest of my life_ , but it's a near thing. Louis nods once, a little nod like he understands, and endeavors to tell Liam about what happened while he was sleeping.  
  
"Harry's leg got a bit crazy this morning," he says. "Started shaking and all, bloody uncontrollable. But then we made him take a bath, it got better." He takes a sip of his juice. "We tried the ping pong table."  
  
Liam laughs sort of breathlessly. "Yeah?"  
  
Louis smiles, making a funny grimace that twists up the side of his face. "Yeah. Bit of failure, that was."  
  
"I can imagine."  
  
"We paired up Niall and Harry and they were utterly useless. Like, really bloody useless. I'm not sure there even was ball-touching-racket involved, though there certainly was ball-touching-every-other-thing-in-the-vicinity. Shameful." He shakes his head exaggeratedly, grinning faintly.  
  
Liam snorts.  
  
"But we're not giving up on making young Harold embrace his sportive side," Louis says. Liam can tell he's faking his usual exuberant cheeriness, and Louis probably knows it, but at least he's not the ghost-like Louis that they got here with. Liam's all about steps. He's always been patient. They need it now. Progress is not always something visible to the naked eye.  
  
Liam doesn't need to ask where the others are; it's like Louis can feel he's going to ask – or maybe it's just that he's grown used to it like they all did. Who knew it was that easy, right? "The boys are still outside," he says, standing up and leaning against the table, hip cocked.  
  
Liam nods.  
  
"What about -" Louis gestures aimlessly, meaning  _after._  
  
"I don't really want to talk about it right now, do you mind?" Liam says. Delaying important conversations isn't something he usually does, but then this whole thing is pretty out of the ordinary, so he figures maybe they're right, maybe he does deserve a break.  
  
"No, of course," Louis says, and seems to take it as his cue to leave, blowing Liam a kiss from his knuckles and sliding through the glass door.  
  
Liam didn't really want him to leave, but he doesn't mind being alone. He had to adjust to going from being alone – "in his head," as his mother says – most of the time to never being alone at all when he met the boys, and sometimes it gets too much. He loves them – God, he  _does_ , so much – but sometimes being with them suffocates him, and he has to take a step back, collect himself. (And he's always a bit scared, even if he doesn't say it, that someday he won't be able to tell where he ends and they begin, won't be able to leave at all.)  
  
Liam and Zayn go grocery-shopping together in the afternoon. It's the first time since they got there that it's more than one of them going, and it feels different, less like a suicide mission and more like a step towards recovery. Liam remembers reluctantly letting Niall go before and being afraid that they'd fall apart without one of the pieces of their unity, waiting anxiously for him to come back.  
  
It still isn't a cake walk, of course. Two paparazzi come up to them as they walk away from the house, cameras flashing, yelling at them. ("How is Harry?""What does he look like?""Is he going to die?"). Liam grits his teeth and keeps walking. He feels Zayn seethe silently next to him, but he can't do anything, doesn't have enough leftover compassion for him after all this.  
  
They buy what they have to. The woman from the drugstoe gives them a sort of avid, sorry look, something a little blurry that reads  _star children, always the same_  and  _you can do it_  at the same time. It gives Liam a migraine, so he doesn't smile at her, only says "Thank you" and pockets the L-Tyrosine and the spare Valium ("You never know" is their motto these days, because it has never been truer, and they can afford all the medication in the world but not to lose Harry).  
  
They go to the bakery, too, buy a couple of muffins to pretend like they can stand to be apart from the others for more than five fucking seconds, but they feel antsy and restless and in the end they cram the muffins in their mouths and come back to the bungalow as soon as they can without it looking like there's been a catastrophe (there has, but it's not one that destroys everything in its wake, more like a slow deconstruction, the pieces of their edifice chipping and eroding).  
  
Zayn grabs his arm as they come near the gate. There isn't anyone in the street (they must've gone to eat, it's almost one), just the two of them.  
  
"Hey," Zayn says, and doesn't stop walking, walks until he crashes into Liam like a trainwreck, his ribs knocking against Liam's. He breathes in Liam's neck, his face pressed against his shoulder. "We're going to make it, right?"  
  
Zayn isn't the type to do that, get naked and raw and  _real_ , so Liam doesn't really know what to do. He isn't sure he would know what to do if it were someone who  _is_  the type to do that (Harry, crying against his cheek, damp eyelashes tickling Liam's skin) so he just stands there, arms hanging limply at his side.  
  
"Maybe," he says. It's like his mouth is set on 'truth' these days. It's a little awful.  
  
Zayn stays there for a moment longer, a handful of seconds (Liam counts the beat in his head; one, two), and then straightens, his shoulders lifting in a tense shrug. "Yeah, I guess," he says, not looking at Liam.  
  
Liam wants to apologize for not knowing how to comfort him, but the words stay stuck in his throat.  
  
The week passes slowly. They're cautious around Harry, half because they're afraid to break him if they brush up too close and half because now that they're through the storm they remember all the resentment they'd stored for later, and later is now. Harry doesn't speak a lot. He tries to exercise but gets tired easily, and when he's exhausted he can't sleep, so he cries in Louis's shoulder and bites his skin. Louis says he doesn't mind the marks.  
  
The days feel empty and too full; the paparazzi are almost all gone, probably called away by another scandal, but they don't go out anyway, afraid to meet people who will look at them and point out the cracks. They're good liars, always have been, but Liam knows that in their heads they deconstruct everything, they accumulate the tiny demons and the rampant fears and wait for them to blow up in their faces. It's a way of dealing. It's probably not the best, but you make do with what you have – right?  
  
They sleep more, but it's like getting drunk, restless and tiring. Now that they've avoided the worst, the big neon sign that said _Save me now_ , there are still all the little things that sting, and that they're not very good at. They weren't very good at the big things either, to be honest: a little luck and a lot of love, and that sounds like a magic recipe but it isn't, or if it is magic is a lot more painful than they were told.  
  
When it gets too much for them (Liam can see it in the way Zayn's hands twitch more, the urge to put a cigarette in his mouth and smoke the worry away), Louis, Zayn and Niall go into town.  
  
"It's just a couple of hours," Zayn says, shrugging his faux-leather jacket on. It doesn't fit as well as it used to, and he wriggles in it a little, probably trying to make it more familiar. "The suburbs are driving me crazy."  
  
"We'll be back soon, Hazza," Louis says, looking right into Harry's empty eyes. Liam wonders if he's always talked only to Harry and it's just gotten more obvious. Harry nods.  
  
Niall just smiles, and somehow it's better than any word of reassurance.  
  
Liam watches the car roar in the driveway, the dust wrapping it in a pale cloud. The TV hums about the world's countless wars in the background.  
  
The house feels empty without them. Liam expected it, but he still takes it like a punch to the sternum, how  _quiet_  it all is without Louis's crazed whispers and Zayn's silent presence, Niall's solar halo. The pile of mattresses feels like a fucking joke in the middle of the room, and Liam wants to kick it, wants to hurt someone or something for this whole situation, whoever is responsible. It's probably Harry, when he thinks of it. He leaves the room, because hitting Harry, no matter how much he may want to, would be counterproductive. Liam isn't the self-destructing type.  
  
He sleeps for an hour in one of the spare rooms, a heavy kind of slumber he wakes up from with drool on his cheek and his book still open in his fingers, the page lost. He pads to the living-room feeling quietly nauseous. His eyes hurt a little, but rubbing at them only makes it worse, so he settles for sticking his hands in his pockets and trying to shake off the malaise. He's not the one who's sick, after all. He's thinking, fuzzy thoughts that dissolve into nothingness as they go through his head, when he hears Harry's voice streaming from the kitchen.  
  
"… in heaven, um, your will be done on earth and heaven. Forgive us our sins," his voice breaks, "as we forgive those who sin against us. And deliver us from evil. Amen."  
  
Liam hears him coughing. He wants to run away, take to his heels and just get the fuck out of there, pretend he hasn't heard, but he has this fucking habit of being brave when he really shouldn't be.  _No_ , he corrects in his head as he walks into the kitchen and Harry looks up at him, eyes wide and red-rimmed.  _Not brave. Stupid._  
  
"Um, hi," Liam says.  
  
"Hi," Harry croaks, looking defeated.  
  
There's a tense silence. Liam opens the fridge almost mechanically and belatedly remembers that he doesn't actually want anything in it. He picks up a loaf of bread and cuts himself a slice. Healthy food, that's what he needs right now. He angles the bread towards Harry to offer him some. Harry shakes his head. Liam cuts him a slice anyway.  
  
"So," Harry says. He's folded in one of the kitchen chairs, and Liam can see his heels digging into the back of his thighs from the corner of his eye. It looks kind of painful. "How much did you hear?"  
  
He looks tired, like he's lived all his life already and he's got nothing left, just his body and this kind of exhausted youth, and Liam can't help but let the anger twist his bowels.  _It's your fault_ , he thinks.  _It's your fault you're like that. No one did that to you._ He stops cutting the ham because his hands are shaking and he doesn't want to injure himself.  
  
"Um, the whole thing, I think?" he mutters, trying to keep his voice from wavering and probably failing.  
  
The silence, again. Liam finishes making his sandwiches (ham and lettuce; it'll do both of them good, and if they're lucky Harry won't throw it up) and hands one to Harry who takes it mechanically, putting it on the table next to him. He wipes his fingers on the leg of his jeans, ducks his head for a second, like it's too heavy for him to carry, and laughs, shaky and frail.  
  
"You're mad at me, right?" he asks.  
  
Liam considers lying for a second, but then decides it would be no use. He doesn't really want to, anyway.  
  
"Yes," he says, and takes a bite of his sandwich. It feels soggy, but he keeps on chewing anyway.  _Good for you_ , he thinks a little blurrily, like a lifeline.  
  
"Okay," Harry says. His eyelids are drooping. Liam wonders if it's one of the symptoms or just because he's tired.  
  
And then the thoughts are swirling in his head, and he can't make sense of all the anger anymore, he feels so shaken and used and his sandwich is soggy and this is unfair, it is, unjust, everything you want, and sue him if he can't keep pretending not to mind.  
  
"That's it?" he says tightly, teeth clenched. Harry looks up at him sharply. If that's hurt in his eyes, Liam ignores it. He has the right to be hurt, too. Fuck, if someone deserves to be hurt it's him. "That's all you're going to say? Okay?"  
  
"What do you want me to say?" Harry asks. He looks so small, and it makes Liam even more angry, the kind of anger that roars in his belly and sizzles and burns. He feels vaguely monstrous.  
  
"Say sorry," Liam says – demands. It won't make everything right, but it's – it will be a first step, or at least that's how he feels.  
  
Harry closes his eyes. Liam tries to count the purple veins, a little hypnotized. "It won't change anything," Harry says.  
  
Liam laughs. He knows it's bitter, and it doesn't sound like him, sounds like somebody else's laugh in his mouth, but he doesn't care. "It's never been easy for you, has it?" he asks. He can't quantify how much of it is just to hurt, to be mean. "Saying sorry?"  
  
Harry blanches a little, but he doesn't say anything, only wraps his arms around his ribcage, crossing on his chest like a straightjacket.  
  
"You're too used to everyone apologizing, you're a mommy's boy, aren't you?" Liam continues. He doesn't listen to what he's saying, just to the blood beating at his temples, threatening to burst. His head hurts. "Say sorry. I fucking deserve it.  _We_ deserve it."  
  
Harry looks up. He doesn't look angry, and Liam wonders if it's because he can't, because he's too tired and too weak for blood to rise to his cheeks. The thought makes nausea curl heavy at the base of his stomach. "Why are you still here, then?" Harry asks defiantly.  
  
"You think just because we love you you're forgiven?"  
  
And Liam  _sees_  the color drain (even more – Liam didn't think it was possible) from Harry's face, he sees something crumble inside, and he knows Harry feels guilty too, for dragging them into this, but he can't bring himself to kneel and pat Harry's knee and say  _Okay, I get it._  
  
"Fuck," Liam says, turning away from Harry and rubbing at his temples. Fucking headache.  
  
He turns back around, and Harry is still here, looking small and still like the fucker who started this whole thing, and Liam is tired, exhausted, his bones are mush and his anger is pounding in his brain like a fucking second heart, so he just says, "Eat your sandwich."  
  
"I'm sorry," Harry says. His voice is small.  
  
"Eat," Liam repeats. "We'll talk about it when you're better." The words are hard to pronounce. His jaw hurts, a distant kind of ache, buzzing in the background of his body.  
  
"I'm sorry," Harry says again, and it's fervent, he means it and he was right, it isn't enough, it doesn't change anything, it's not even satisfactory or a relief or  _anything_. Liam holds back the  _I don't care._  
  
"I am," Harry is saying behind him. "I'm sorry, I am, I'm really sorry, I -"  
  
"Shut up," Liam says, probably more snappish than he intended, and he sees Harry recoil as though Liam had slapped him. "You're right. It doesn't change anything."  
  
Harry is crying. Liam can't determine if it's just his tear-ducts fucking up again or if he's crying for real, silent tears streaming down his cheeks. Liam looks away.  
  
"You don't know the words," he says, because he has to say something or he feels like the silence will strangle him and leave him for dead.  
  
Harry's head snaps up. "What?"  
  
"The prayer," Liam says, waving a vague hand towards Harry, head still down. "You don't know the words to it." He wants to slide down the cupboard until he's sitting on the kitchen tiles and just take his head in his hands, maybe breathe, but he doesn't.  
  
"I – no," Harry says. Liam doesn't look at him, but maybe he's ashamed. "Zayn said it would help, maybe, but I forgot – you know how you learn the words when you're a kid, but I forgot, it's the only prayer I know, you know, the old one, the only one you really hear, our father and then all that crap and – delivering -"  
  
He trails off. He's full-on sobbing now, big sobs that choke him when they reach his throat, and he coughs at the same time, he's a mess, and then his leg starts shaking and it gets even more messy. Liam gets closer, kneels in front of him. He grips his ankle, cooing at him. "It's okay," he says, trying to be soothing (and there, another thing on his shoulders to bury his anger under). "S'gonna be okay, Haz. I can teach you if you want."  
  
Harry looks down at him, his eyes red and blood-shot. His lip are red too, bitten. "Yeah?" he asks, voice breaking again.  
  
"Yeah," Liam says, drawn out in a sigh, and tries to calm his beating heart with the memories of his childhood, going to church with his mother, the familiar rhythm of the prayer.  _Don't mess it up_ , he wants to say like a warning,  _don't mess up my prayer, don't take this from me too_.  
  
Harry nods as though he'd heard. It's what makes Liam continue, say the first words out loud, eyes locked with his. "Our Father in heaven..."  
  
Harry nods.  
  
"Repeat after me," Liam says, and takes one of Harry's hands into his, squeezes, probably too hard. "Our Father in heaven..."  
  
"Our Father in heaven," Harry says, and it's disjointed, breathy and small, but -  
  
"Hallowed be your name..."  
  
Harry smiles through his tears, little and lopsided. "What does it even mean, though," he whispers.  
  
Liam shrugs. Laughter grows in his chest, a little hysterical, but he doesn't let it get out, only draw his mouth into a kind of smile. "Repeat," he says.  
  
"Hallowed be your name..."  
  
It goes well after that, builds into a kind of rhythm, like a poem. Liam says the sentence, and Harry repeats it, slower, less perfect, his voice small and a little uncertain. When they reach the Amen his eyes are closed and he's breathing through his mouth, almost wheezing.  
  
He drops his head on Liam's shoulder.  
  
"Yeah," he rasps. His curls tickle Liam's neck, but he doesn't say anything. "Maybe Zayn was right," Harry mumbles.  
  
They stay like that until Harry falls asleep and Liam carries him back to the mattresses, limp and almost weightless in his arms. Liam's knees hurt from staying crouched too long, and his head is still pounding, so he curls up around Harry and lets the prayer run through his head in circles, give us our daily bread, forgive us our sins, lulling him to sleep.  
  
It's the chatter from the other boys that wakes him up. He's disorientated at first, looks up blearily and doesn't know what time it is. He hates this feeling.  
  
"What time is it?" he asks.  
  
Zayn looks down at him, lips still curved in a smile. "Five," he says. "You okay, babe?"  
  
Liam sits up, rubbing at his eyes. Harry is still asleep beside him, moving a little in his sleep.  
  
"Yeah," Liam answers. "How was town?"  
  
Niall comes up behind Zayn, draping easy arms around his midsection and resting his head on his shoulder. Liam feels vaguely jealous, like they've fixed something while he wasn't there, rebuilt a unity that doesn't involve him anymore.  _It's just temporary_ , he tells himself to quash the anxiety.  _t won't last._  
  
"Great," Niall smiles, shiny teeth and all. It's an improvement. It doesn't really feel like a good thing in this context, but Liam'll take anything.  
  
"Okay, then," Liam says, and yawns, and then lets out a startled "oof" when Louis flings himself in his lap. He should probably be used to it by now, but he isn't – he doesn't think he'll ever get used to it, and maybe that's why it gets so overwhelming all the time, because it all feels so new still.  
  
"What was that for?" he asks breathlessly, swaying a little under Louis's weight. He feels Harry stir behind him but doesn't turn around.  
  
"Nah," Louis says nonsensically, "just wanted to." He presses his face into Liam's neck, and he smells like something Liam has grown unused to, maybe happiness.  
  
Liam lets himself be hugged, and after that the boys bug Harry to make him cook. Eventually he accepts, and the boys stay around him in the kitchen, like some kind of guards, to make sure he doesn't fall and injure himself or start throwing up or – something. Liam feels sore, so he goes to take a shower while they do that.  
  
Dinner is ready when he comes out, and they eat around a table for the first time since the first night. It's simple, rice and chicken with a bit of curry, but it's good. They eat in silence, crowded too close around the dinner table, elbows brushing.  
  
"We're leaving tomorrow," Liam says when Harry brings the dessert, a carrot cake the boys bought in town.  
  
Harry starts shaking like a leaf; from the corner of his eye, Liam sees Louis slip an arm around his shoulders, glancing at Liam like he ought to feel guilty.  
  
"Okay," Zayn says, and eats a bite of cake. His eye are dark, downcast – he's the one Liam finds the hardest to read, sometimes.  
  
"We'll be alright," Niall says.  
  
He sounds so  _convinced_ , Liam thinks – and then Niall extends his hand, palm open, and they pile their hands over his. It's like a silent sort of promise,  _we're gonna be okay._  
  
"Yeah," Liam says. He wants to believe it, too. "Yeah, we'll be alright."  
  
The smile Niall smiles is worth all the lies.  
  
They end up sleeping a little closer, that night. It's a last night, after all – it doesn't matter that Louis's elbow is jammed into Liam's stomach, that Harry's bony knees dig into the flesh of Zayn's side, that Niall moves a little too much. After this it's the wildness, it's back to the outside with all its ugliness and temptations and charts and paparazzi.  
  
"Don't worry," Liam hears Louis whisper to Harry, somewhere in the dark next to him. It's rushed and soft and sweet, a hurried promise. Liam feels a rush of affection for Louis, because he understands this kind of love that feels like panic. "We're going to be okay. I'mma keep you safe, Hazza."  
  
"Yeah," Harry rumbles, and it's the last thing Liam hears before he drifts, an arm tight around Zayn's waist, his ankles brushing against Louis's, lost in the feeling of  _them_ , surrounding him.  
  
They leave as the morning ends. Everyone has been warned, the label and all, and it was supposed to be kept a secret because they really don't need the attention right now but maybe the label decided otherwise and maybe it just leaked because there is a tight crowd of paparazzi in front of the gate when they head for it, bags in hand.  
  
"Fuck," Louis curses, sounding angry, and wraps an arm around Harry's shoulders almost automatically.  
  
In the end it's unpleasant but they do it because they have to, ignoring the questions and ducking their heads so the paparazzi can't see the bags under their eyes beneath the sunglasses. The label sent them a couple of cars, but they pile up in the first one. Liam refuses one of the bodyguard's offer to drive and takes the wheel, just the five of them in this car with its tainted windows and shiny black bonnet, like it ought to be.  
  
They're exhausted when they get to the complex. They linger in the hallway, unable to tell each other good night even if they know they'll see each other the next morning. Liam thinks about his apartment, his bed that's not been slept in for weeks now, that is there just because he needs to pretend he's got a home that isn't these boys, and he feels his eyes swell with tears. He hasn't cried in such a long time, though, and he isn't going to now, so he just swallows it up and says:  
  
"Maybe we should go to bed."  
  
They all look at him like he's the bad guy, but they know he isn't, he's just saying what they all think. It makes him angry that he's always the one who has to – if it were up to them they'd probably sleep here, in the doorway, on top of each other.  
  
"Don't look at me like that," he says, and maybe his voice breaks and maybe it doesn't. Niall takes a step forward with fierce eyes and engulfs him in a hug that knocks the air out of Liam's lungs.  
  
"I -" he starts to say, but he chokes on it, so he just holds on. He catches Harry's hungry gaze from over Niall's shoulder, his sharp jaw and malnourished-looking face, and holds out a hand.  
  
Harry looks surprised, but he joins them anyway. Niall laughs softly in Liam's hair but it fizzles down and soon they're all together in this big, bone-crushing embrace. The silence is filled with their breathing, labored and humid as though they were going to cry, but they don't, they just hold each other like it's their last day on earth, tight and furious and silent.  
  
Eventually Louis laces his fingers with Liam's and chuckles a little, ducking his head. "Come on," he says, and he picks up his bag, flinging it on his shoulder and fitting his arm around Harry's shoulders easily, keeping him close. Liam doesn't ask what he's doing. He knows.  
  
Zayn runs his knuckles over the small of Liam's back, slow and intimate, and Liam turns around to smile at him, catching Niall's hand in his in the process. They're good like that, he thinks, or at least as good as they can be – tight, five friends who can't breathe without each other and they manage, they do, except when they don't.  
  
Harry and Louis's apartment is cold and it feels unlived-in (because it is), but it's better than the other apartments where they would have been alone, wondering if the others are okay and counting the seconds until they're reunited. It's really a bit ridiculous, when you think of it, Liam thinks, and smiles.  
  
"What's making you so happy, Payner?" Louis asks, smiling crookedly. "Share."  
  
Liam smiles a little bit wider. "Nothing. You."  
  
Louis pulls him into another short embrace, noogying his head. "You big sap," he says. It isn't like it was before, it never will be, but if it's the best they can do, Liam'll say they didn't mess up too bad, considering.  
  
"You lads want food?" Niall calls from the kitchen. Liam laughs again, can't stop, because he's relieved, he's so relieved.  
  
"Fuck," he says, hands on his knees, face split in a grin, and he catches Harry's eyes. Harry smiles back, a little weak, and nods.  _Fuck, you're alive_ , he understands, because that's what Liam's saying.  
  
Louis looks at him, his eyes big with a kind of serious emotion Liam isn't used to see on him. It's gone before Liam can understand it, though, and Louis calls back: "Yes, darling!"  
  
Niall laughs in the kitchen. "Come make it yourself, then," he yells back, and then it's the rustle, who gets to the kitchen first.  
  
They set the table a little haphazardly and Niall makes pasta because it's the only thing he knows how to do, so they end up ordering a pizza too. They're growing a bit bored of pasta after two weeks spent eating only that. Harry only throws up once, and they don't forget to give him the medication, feel responsible, a little grown-up even.  
  
Liam thinks about bringing things up, their future, the label and Harry and his mistakes and other things no one really wants to talk about but they'll have to anyway, but after dinner he's too full to do anything but slump in the couch and cuddle against Zayn's side. He's feeling drowsy and sated, glad to be back somewhere that isn't this bungalow that he's grown to hate. (He wonders if they'll come back there. They thought they'd make it a tradition, go there every year or so to celebrate their friendship, but now Liam doesn't really see how he'll be able to think of the things there any other way that "Oh, that's the rug Harry where convulsed for the first time" and "That's the vase he puked blood into.").  
  
Niall and Louis drag the mattresses out of the rooms and force Liam to stand up and bring back his own with Niall and Zayn. Liam rolls his eyes and whispers something about it being ridiculous, but the boys can see right through him anyway so it's useless to pretend like it isn't the only way he'll be able to sleep, like there isn't a little of this crazy joy bubbling in his chest.  
  
"We're back!" Niall hollers when they finally reach the Harry and Louis' door after many a difficulty, Liam and Zayn panting and huffing behind him. Niall, of course, looks as though dragging his mattress through the whole floor was a cakewalk. Liam resists the urge to stick his tongue out at him, but it's a near thing.  
  
"Honey, they're home!" Louis pretends to swoon when they walk in the living-room, and Harry laughs from where he's lying on the mattresses, weak but genuine.  
  
They're seasoned in the art of piling mattresses now, so it doesn't take long to collect all the pillows and blankets in the apartment and distribute them on the mattresses. Everyone slips into old pajamas, brushes their teeth. Liam basks in the familiarity and lets himself be swept off his feet by this familiar hope.  
  
Niall gets them glasses and makes a big show of getting the red monstrosity he calls orange juice out of his bag. The boys laugh.  
  
"I'm not drinking that," Liam says with an air of finality.  
  
"You never drink  _anything_  like us," Louis whines, fake-pouting. It's strangely endearing in that way only Louis can pull off.  
  
"No," Liam says. "I. Am not. Drinking. That."  
  
But he can't fight four over-enthusiastic teenage boys, even if one of them is a recovering drug addict, and in the end he agrees to take a sip. He screws up his nose, almost expecting it to taste like blood, but to his (irrational) surprise it's good, like orange but with a little more character. He licks his lips. "It's good," he says.  
  
Louis hollers and pours everyone a glass. Liam starts to protest that it'll get them over-excited and they won't be able to sleep, but it's not like they were planning on sleeping anyway, and it'll take weeks – maybe months – before Harry regains a normal sleeping schedule.  
  
Besides, it doesn't look like that theory's very true, because after a couple of hours spent talking about nothing, whispering in the growing darkness, they all start yawning. They settle closer against each other, fitting their limbs into familiar nooks. Liam takes a second to think about how close they've grown, how used to each other's bodies and minds. He'd probably be worried about it he didn't have worse things to worry about and if he wasn't so bloody  _tired_.  
  
"We made it," Niall says sleepily from where he is in the middle, spooning Harry and twirling one of his curls in his fingers.  
  
Liam opens his mouth to say,  _Not really,_  because they haven't, and it's far from over, but what comes out instead is, "Yeah."  
  
"Yeah," the others echo, one by one, first Louis, sharp and assured, then Zayn, soft, and finally Harry, half-muffled into his pillow.  
  
They'll have to talk about things tomorrow, Liam thinks fuzzily; promotional events and interviews and thanking the fans and talking to their parents. They'll have to plan trips and apologize to a bunch of people, sort things out with Harry. They'll have to do a fuckload of things and it won't be easy, and they'll fight and this is not the end of the difficult things, they ought to know that.  
  
"Stop thinking, Payner," Niall says sleepily, rubbing a thumb against Liam's cheekbone and tangling their legs together, and Liam – Liam does.  
  
 _I love you,_  he thinks as he falls asleep, and he's pretty sure he can hear it echoed all around him, by the steady breathings and softly beating hearts.

 

 


End file.
